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Cost-Effectiveness of Education Policies in Latin America: A Survey of Expert Opinion
By Ernesto Schiefelbein, Laurence Wolff, Paulina Schiefelbein (12/98, En, Es)
This paper provides a new approach to estimating the cost-effectiveness of educational interventions in primary education based on expert opinions.
Many educational investments continue to be made on the basis of untested or partially tested assumptions about the cost-effectiveness of particular interventions. In fact, current knowledge about cost-effectiveness in education is extraordinarily inadequate, especially considering the huge amounts of money that go into education. The authors devised a questionnaire and gave it to ten international experts, mainly located in universities and international agencies, all of whom were well acquainted with educational research and with practical attempts at educational reform in the region; as well as to about 30 Latin American planner/practitioners, most of them working in the planning office of their ministry of education. Each respondent was asked to estimate the impact of 40 possible primary school interventions on learning as well as the probability of successful implementation. Using their own estimates of the incremental unit costs of these interventions, the authors created an index ranking the cost-effectiveness of each of the 40 interventions.
This is the first time an index of this type has been created. While the results of this exercise provide no magic bullet for improving primary education, the exercise does help planners to clarify the assumptions underlying decisions made or to be made about priority educational investments. It also provides a new and potentially highly effective instrument for consensus building and for training of education decision makers throughout the world.
Last updated: 04/06/07
