An analysis of key indicators for enhancing school performance: Evidences from India

Abstract

This paper aims to provide insights into improving school performance through a twofold analysis: identifying the schools and zones most suitable for carrying out interventions, and determining the key factors that affect education delivery in schools. Over the last few years, India's central and state governments have started to collect data on several aspects of education at the school level. These data are available in raw form as well as descriptive reports and need to be explored for key policy insights. Hence, this study adopts a combination of descriptive and inferential statistical analyses to identify the improvement areas. The study uses box plots, chi-squared test, geotagging, and multiple linear regression analysis on three years of data from about 800 government schools in Delhi, India. The results indicate that the school's performance depends on its location, as evident from chi-square tests carried out over three academic years. Some zones experience deteriorating performance over the analysis horizon, while some remain consistent. Multiple regression analysis reveals seven statistically significant terms that explain approximately 35% variation in test scores. There is a statistically significant association between school performance and the existence of playgrounds, number of inspections, the primary medium of instruction delivery, number of books in the library, student attendance in the initial months, and proportion of female teachers. The measures suggested here incorporate both strategic and operational aspects that affect education delivery.