Measuring the productivity of higher education institutions by Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA)

Since efficiency improvement in service organizations is one of the features of today’s developed societies, evaluating the function of higher education systems is of great importance. The aim of this study was to measure the efficiency of higher education institutions of Sirjan. This descriptive retrograde study was carried out in Sirjan in 2010. The research population was all 6 higher education institutions within the city of Sirjan. The Data Envelopment Analysis technique and the Malmquist Total Factor Efficiency Index were employed to measure the efficiency and variables such as the number of academic staff, number of graduates, number of courses offered in the education sector, number of library books, number of workshops and laboratories, number of research plans and books and articles in the research sector were taken into account. The data envelopment analysis and DEAP2 software were used for the measurement of amounts and the Excel software was used for information organizing. The total factor efficiency mean in research sector was 0.989 indicating a decrease of 1.1% in efficiency within the studied period. The total factor efficiency mean in the education sector was 1.312 indicating an increase of 31.2% in efficiency within the studied period. On the whole, the total factors efficiency shows a decreased efficiency in the research sector of Sirjan’s higher education institutions that can be mainly due to technological changes and the total factors efficiency in education sector shows efficiency improvement that can be largely due to managerial efficiency changes.