Educational reforms and secondary school's efficiency performance in Greece: a bootstrap DEA and multilevel approach

Abstract

Advocates for education reforms frequently call for policies to increase school efficiency performance. The Greek educational system has undergone several reforms while the recent financial crisis alters significantly. Using a unique dataset this study attempts to shed light on 643 Greek secondary education schools’ efficiency performance, over the period 2000–2017, and to perform an investigation of the efficiency determinants in a multilevel framework. Results reveal that there is substantial room for improvements especially for specific Greek NUTS2 regions while the adopted reforms seem to have a very low effect. Our findings also denote a favourable effect for physics, science laboratories, and class size and a significant negative effect for the variable of student per class. In addition, at a second level the gross domestic product per capita of the NUTS2 region that each school belongs positively affects its efficiency performance.