Efficiency and Productivity Analysis of Schools in Ahvaz University of Medical Sciences during 2011-2015

  Efficiency and productivity are considered as the most important performance indicators of an educational organization. This study aimed to estimate the efficiency and productivity of schools in Ahvaz University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran. This descriptive study was based on panel and time series data. In total, seven schools of Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences were assessed during 2011-2015 in terms of efficiency and productivity. The input and output indexes were determined based on research and educational performance of schools. In this research, data envelopment analysis method and the Malmquist productivity index (MPI) were used to analyze the efficiency and productivity of schools, respectively. Data analysis was performed in Deap.2 software. In this study, mean index of changes in management, scale, technical and technological efficiency over five years were 1 (constant), 0.991 (decreased), 0.991 (decreased), and 0.862 (decreased), respectively. In addition, all efficiency and productivity indexes grew in 2014, compared to the other years. Moreover, the mean total productivity of schools evaluated in the research was reported to be 0.855. Therefore, the schools had a relative decline in productivity (15.5%) during 2011-2015. Furthermore, the total productivity index increased in 2012 (+19.8%) and 2014 (+73.4%). Among the schools assessed, the schools of medicine (47%), health (43%), pharmacy (32%), nursing (14%), and dentistry (13%) had a reduction in productivity, respectively. On the other hand, the schools of paramedical (80.1%) and rehabilitation (18.4%) had the highest rate of productivity growth among the schools of Ahvaz University. According to the results of this study, efficiency and productivity of evaluated schools required improvement. In this regard, the most important factor for the increase and decrease of total productivity index of the schools was technological efficiency