Technical and scale efficiency of vocational education and training institutions: the case of the New Zealand polytechnics

In recent years vocational education and training has been recognised as having a crucial impact on worker productivity, enterprise performance and the overall performance of the New Zealand economy. The importance of vocational education and training gives rise to the issue of the efficient operation of educational institutions. In this paper Data Envelopment Analysis is used to derive estimates of technical and scale efficiency. Comparisons are also made with Victorian TAFE institutes. The results indicate that there is scope to improve efficiency and to take advantage of economies of size in the sector.