An ELECTRE approach for evaluating secondary education profiles: evidence from PISA survey in Serbia

The use of multi‐criteria decision making has been recognized as a useful tool for economic applications, especially in the last decade. The aim of our study is to promote the potential of the ELimination Et Choix Traduisant la REalité (ELECTRE) method in the field of economics of education. To evaluate the secondary education profiles in Serbia, we have used PISA data and the ELECTRE multi‐level outranking (ELECTRE MLO) approach, as an alternative to commonly used econometric models. We introduce a new outranking relation, which is important for decision makers for two reasons. First, it allows the establishment of an acyclic relation, for which we provide a threshold value, that assures there will be no cycles in the relation graph. Second, the procedure does not require an excessive number of parameters as in other existing ranking methods, which enables an easier understanding, simplified use and less bias in the decision making process. After neutralizing the impact of socio‐economic status and regional disparities, we obtain the performance levels for secondary education profiles in Serbia.