Measuring the efficiency of higher education: case of Bosnia and Herzegovina

  • Received March 25, 2019;
    Accepted May 6, 2019;
    Published May 15, 2019
  • Author(s)
  • DOI
    http://dx.doi.org/10.21511/ppm.17(2).2019.13
  • Article Info
    Volume 17 2019, Issue #2, pp. 177-192
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This paper is devoted to measuring the efficiency of the higher education of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The data envelopment analysis method was applied, considering the number of enrolled students, budget financing, co-financing, self-financing as inputs, and the number of graduated students according to the field of education as the output. Measuring the relative efficiency of main fields of the higher education system of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the authors found that the agriculture is the most efficient field of higher education in this country. However, the engineering, manufacturing technologies and construction field have the lowest efficiency score due to the high consumption of budget expenditures, but the lowest education results. The hypothesis of the growing efficiency of the higher education system of Bosnia and Herzegovina was not confirmed. The downward trend in the total number of publications indicates a twofold deterioration in the scientific efficiency of Bosnia and Herzegovina for the six-year period. Comparison with neighboring countries showed relatively low scientific efficiency of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The conclusion is that currently the higher education system in Bosnia and Herzegovina is relatively inefficient and its efficiency falls down.

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    • Figure 1. The number of higher education institutions, students, teachers and associates
    • Figure 2. Students and teaching staff in RS universities
    • Figure 3. Enrolled and graduated students according to the field of education
    • Figure 4. Graduated students per age
    • Figure 5. The number of students by scientific fields and according to the method of financing in the academic year 2015–2016
    • Figure 6. Enrolled in masters, specialist and doctoral studies by their age
    • Figure 7. Enrolled in masters and specialist studies and doctoral studies
    • Figure 8. Masters of science, masters, specialists and doctors of science according to the scientific area (2016) and for the period 2006–2018
    • Figure 9. Number of research and development works published in Republika Srpska during the period 2009–2015
    • Table 1. Descriptive statistics for a sample
    • Table 2. DEA results
    • Table 3. Total number of WoS papers, quotations and citations from 2010 to 2014.