Performance evaluation of the efficiency of Philippine Private Higher Educational Institutions: application of frontier approaches

This paper evaluates the efficiency performance of Philippine Private Higher Educational Institutions (PHEIs), using frontier approaches known as data envelopment analysis – Malmquist indices and stochastic frontier analysis. The sample consists of 30 private educational institutions, which were granted autonomy over the time period 1999–2003, with a total of 150 observations. The paper also analyzes whether technical inefficiency is systematically related to age, ownership (private sectarian versus private non-sectarian), and autonomy status. Significant new findings show that higher technological progress boosted the higher productivity growth of the majority of PHEIs (about 66.67%). We also found that age and ownership have positive and statistically significant effects on its technical inefficiency. PHEIs obtained a technical efficiency of 71.2%, and therefore need to increase their output revenues by 28.8% to be efficient. These new findings contribute significantly to educational performance.