Page 173 - DEDU503_EDUCATIONAL_MANAGEMENT_ENGLISH

Kulwinder Pal, Lovely Professional University Unit 14: Cost–Benefit and Cost–Efficiency Analysis in Education

Unit 14: Cost–Benefit and Cost–Efficiency Notes

Analysis in Education

CONTENTS
Objectives
Introduction
14.1 Meaning of Cost Benefit Analysis
14.2 Aims of Cost Benefit Analysis
14.3 Meaning of Cost Efficiency Analysis
14.4 Measuring Cost Efficiency
14.5 Educational Applications
14.6 Summary
14.7 Keywords
14.8 Review Questions

14.9 Further Readings

Objectives

The objectives of this unit can be summarized as below :
• To explain the Meaning of Cost Benefit Analysis
• To discuss about the Aims of Cost Benefit Analysis
• To describe about the Cost Efficiency Analysis
• To discuss about Measuring Cost Efficiency
• To describe about the Educational Applications of Cost Efficiency

Introduction
Cost-benefit analysis of education, as currently practiced throughout the world, has been frequently
criticized. For example, the common neglect of indirect economic benefits as well as of non-economic
benefits and the use of cross-section data that reflect present and past supply and demand conditions
raise doubts about the usefulness of cost-benefits analysis as a guide to future policy decisions. Such
objections will be examined in the booklet to determine whether they are fatal to the approach as a
whole or can be overcome. At the same time, the booklet seeks to emphasize the strength of cost-
benefit analysis of education : namely that it combines, in a convenient form, information about the
costs of different kinds of education together with information about the balance between supply
and demand for different categories of educated manpower. Cost-benefit analysis also serves to
focus attention on certain key variables in a country’s educational or economic system; namely
relative costs of different manpower. Thus, although cost-benefit analysis may not always provide
planners with unambiguous policy directives, it does provide them with information useful for
making rational policy decisions.
The term cost-efficiency is now commonly used in justifying specific educational interventions. It
has also become standard parlance among educational policymakers and decision makers.

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 167