Evaluación de la eficiencia en la educación superior utilizando un Análisis Envolvente de Datos (DEA). Una aplicación a la Universidad de Cuenca

Abstract

As a consequence of a rising in education investment, Ecuador has implemented policies that aim to improve the quality standards at Institutions of Higher Education by means of new processes of assessment. After the categorization carried out by the CEAACES in 2015, University of Cuenca was rated in Category A, which means that this institution fulfills the demanded requirements, however, an analysis that measures and evaluates the performance of the resources provided by public funding is needed. The present project intends to analyze and evaluate the levels of efficiency of the academic programs at University of Cuenca to identify the efficient majors in 2013 and 2016. The study drew on Data Envelopment Analysis, a non-parametric method output-oriented with constant and variable returns. The input variables considered are teaching hours, expenses on teachers’ salaries and costs on non-academic staff salaries, operating expenditures, and number of PhD professors; while the output variables are the number of students that have enrolled, graduated, and finished their studies, and the number of papers in indexed journals. The results suggest that, of the 49 specialties analyzed, 22% were efficient in 2013 and, in 2016, this percentage increased to 49%. As a result, the average efficiency increased from .63 to .82, due to the fact that the products reached higher levels in 2016 and that the research efforts carried out by the academic staff increased.