Equity in education

Equity in education has two dimensions. The first is fairness, which basically
means making sure that personal and social circumstances for example
gender, socio-economic status or ethnic origin should not be an obstacle to
achieving educational potential.

The second is inclusion, in other words ensuring a basic minimum standard

of education for all for example that everyone should be able to read, write
and do simple arithmetic. The two dimensions are closely intertwined:
tackling school failure helps to overcome the effects of social deprivation
which often causes school failure.

Both equity and fairness are issues for OECD countries. Children from poorer
homes in most OECD countries are between three and four times more likely
to be among the poorest scorers in mathematics at age 15 (see Figure 1).

*SES - socioeconomic status (SES)

And when it comes to inclusion, many students in OECD countries struggle
with reading and risk, leaving school without basic skills for work and life in
the 21st century. Significantly, there are big differences between countries
(see Figure 2).

Three key policy areas can affect equity in education: the design of
education systems, practices in and out of school, and how resources are
allocated.

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. (2008). Ten steps

to equity in education. Retrieved from
http://www.oecd.org/education/school/39989494.pdf

OECD CURRENT MEMBERSHIP

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is a unique forum where
the governments of 34 democracies with market economies work with each other, as well as
with more than 70 non-member economies to promote economic growth, prosperity, and
sustainable development.

United States Mission to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. (n.d.).
About the OECD. Retrieved from http://usoecd.usmission.gov/mission/overview.html

(Segregation, Inclusion and Integration)

Integration is not Inclusion

Segregation
Disabled people of all ages and/or those learners with 'Special
Educational Needs' labels being placed in any form of segregated
education setting. This tends to force disabled people to lead a
separate life.
For example: separate special school or college, separate unit within
school/college or separate segregated courses within mainstream
education settings.

Integration
Disabled people of all ages and/or those learners with 'Special
Educational Needs' labels being placed in mainstream education
settings with some adaptations and resources, but on condition that
the disabled person and/or the learner with 'Special Educational Needs'
labels can fit in with pre-existing structures, attitudes and an unaltered
environment.
For example: the child is required to "fit in" to what already exists in
the school.

Inclusion
Disabled people of all ages and/or those learners with 'Special
Educational Needs' labels being educated in mainstream education
settings alongside their nondisabled peers, where there is a
commitment to removing all barriers to the full participation of
everyone as equally valued and unique individuals.
For example: education for ALL

The Alliance for Inclusive Education. (n.d.). Integration is not Inclusion.

Retrieved from http://www.allfie.org.uk/pages/useful
%20info/integration.html

Allocation

An authorization to incur expense or obligation up to a specified

amount, for a specific purpose, and within a specific period.

Business dictionary. (n.d.). Allocation. Retrieved from

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/allocation.html

a system of dividing expenses and incomes among the various

branches, departments, etc., of a business.

Dictionary.com. (2016). Allocation. Retrieved from

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/allocation

Efficiency
In economic terms the concept of efficiency can easily be
defined as the relationship between inputs and outputs,
whereby economic efficiency is increased by a gain in units of
output per unit of input.
In relation to education, we may say that various educational
outcomes can result from a variety of different combinations of
inputs such as teachers, buildings, class size, curriculum, etc.

Thomas and Kemmerer (1983) : 'learning group' size (a

measure of access to resources) does increase student
achievement.
relationship between teacher characteristics and student
achievementseem to suggest that verbal aptitude, quality of
university programs, andexperience are associated with gains
in student learning (Summers and Wolfe,1977; Levin, 1969;
Hanushek, 1981).
pointsout that it is extremely difficult to separate the
independent effectsof teacher attributes since highly qualified
teachers are more likely towork in schools and communities
that have more and better resources.
student achievement is obviously affected by the educational
milieu of the home and the presence (or absence) of excellent
communityfacilities and resources.
differences in student learning appear to be associated with:
differences in parental time spent in learning-related activities
(Leibowitz, 1977; Mumane et al., 1981); learning-related
opportunities after school hours (Medrich et al., 1982), and
community-based resources such as activities for children,
better libraries and other community-based cultural events
(Benson, 1982; Medrich et al., 1982).
as the school becomes larger the cost per pupil drops

Cooze, J. (1991). The elusive concept of efficiency in education.

Retrieved from
http://www.mun.ca/educ/faculty/mwatch/vol1/cooze.html

Research Studies

In the Philippines, 15.6% of the national government expenditures go to

education, culture and manpower development (Fiscal Statistics).
The percentage is comparable with that of countries of similar per capita
income (World Development, 2010).
local governments spend 5.9% of their total expenditures to education as
well. The national government, though the Department of Education, still
remains to be largest source of funding for the basic education which at 2008
figures stand at PhP155 billion (Dept. of Educ, 2009).
LGUs contributed approximately PhP27.8 billion in 2008 (Bureau of Local,
2008).
Despite the country spending a considerable proportion of its national and
local government resources on education, its education outcomes specifically
on the school attendance rates are average compared to that of countries
with similar per capita income levels (World Development, 2010).
However, when one takes into consideration test scores, one finds that the
Mean test scores from the National Achievement Tests (NAT) have not
improved significantly in many years. It has also varied considerably within
and among schools (NETRC, 2009).

Disparities in attendance rates are also very much pronounced among

regions/provinces in the Philippines, especially between poor and richer
regions.
Boys access to schools has also been found to be less favorable than girls
across all income groups and in most localities (National Statistics Office,
2007).
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND EMPIRICAL MODEL

A. Education Production Functions

There is no specific economic theory that deterministically relates education
outcomes and specific education inputs.
There is however, an education production function (EPF) that treats school
districts/divisions as producers, concerned with maximizing student
achievement test scores as outputs.
examines how student achievement outcomes are influenced by school
inputs, household characteristics and community variables
. As such, this paper formulated a stochastic specification of the EPF that can
be used to analyze the efficiency of education management units, which shall
be treated as the decision making units (DMUs) of the education sector.

A Stochastic Presentation of the EFP

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Teachers contribute a lot to test score improvements, however, as the

quadratic term would indicate is only up to a certain level.
The log of the number of pupils per room is also significant, implying that
congestion detrimentally affects tests scores.
The log of the number of seats available per pupil is also significant at the
1% level, implying test score improvement gains when seat-deprived schools
are decongested through additional supplies.
All of these imply the significant role of basic educational inputs to
improvements in test scores at the elementary level.
Only one environmental variable is shown to be significant.
Access to sanitary drinking water significantly improves tests scores in a
province.
Electricity coverage on the other hand is not statistically significant.
It is recommended further that other environment proxies should be used to
capture other exogenous factors that may be affecting school divisions.
At the secondary level, the signs of the regression estimates also conform to
the a priori expectation, however, a number of the explanatory variables are
not statistically significant, like in the case of pupil per room.
The estimates show as well that congestion in seating ratio at the elementary
level greatly depresses test scores compared to the secondary level.
Water sanitation is still statistically significant and has almost the same effect
as that of the elementary level.

Two specifications were done for the SF estimation: the first specification
covering all school divisions where the data is completely available (183 out
of the 185) and the second specification covering the provinces where the
environmental variables are complete (only available for 77 provinces, as no

further disaggregation for the cities). Frontier estimates are shown in Table 1
for both levels of education. Robust standard errors are used to remove
spatial autocorrelation and heteroskedasticity.

B. Technical Efficiency Estimates

Overall, Philippine public school divisions are technically inefficient (89.4%elementary, 90.4%- secondary).
The highest technical efficiency scores at both levels were registered by
Digos City.
Regionally speaking, divisions in Eastern Visayas were the most numerous in
the most technically efficient.
Sulu is the least technically efficient at both levels.
This implies that Sulu is most challenged school division is terms of
translating inputs to outcomes, which is most likely due to socioeconomic
conditions prevailing in the province.

C. Data Envelopment Analysis Efficiency Scores

Overall, most school divisions are technically inefficient, input-wise or
output-wise, whether at the elementary and secondary level.
School divisions performed best on the output efficiency, with a score
of 0.79 at the elementary and 0.69 at the secondary.
Several divisions have also emerged as champion divisions, whose
outcomes are on the frontier, as indicated by an efficiency score of 1.
The overall input efficiency score for elementary is 0.71 and 0.68 for
secondary.
It means that school divisions can reduce input usage by 29% for
elementary and 32% for secondary and still attain the same level of
test scores.
For output efficiency, elementary school divisions can still increase
their test scores by 21% with the amount of inputs they have and 32%
for secondary schools. The figures are summarized below.

D. Potential Improvements in Efficiency

However, it can be observed that the DEA efficiency estimates at the
elementary and secondary levels, geographical patterns seem to emerge.
Most of the worst performing school divisions are in Mindanao, where armed
conflict and political instability are relatively more pronounced.
The high poverty incidence and poor infrastructure most likely depressed the
efficiency scores in the island.
In Negros Island and in the inefficient divisions of Ilocos, it may be
recommended to investigate the determinants of inefficiency, since these are
relatively above average in school inputs. Other school and environmental
variables may explain such.
E. Relative Efficiency of School Divisions
The finding as shown in the Spearman correlation matrix above adds to the
evidence that school divisions productive efficiency is similar for both levels
of education.
This further indicates that inefficiencies present in the school division are
observable/do manifest in the outcomes of elementary and secondary
schools under its management.