ABSTRACT

Access to quality education is the intellectual right of every child, and it was first acknowledged in December 1948 in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Further, it was also stated that education until the primary level should be free, but education should also focus on personal development and promote respect for human beings (UDHR Article 26). Recently, Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) reinforced the importance of education as a universal right regardless of color, language, race, gender, economic condition, and social origin. It is possible to improve the quality of education by efficiently using inputs. The first section provides the model for resource allocation in education. The object of the model is to maximize the school efficiency and student outputs based on the student’s level input variables i.e., ability, effort, and resources. However, the first question is to measure the performance to analyze how much chance of improvement is available. Essay two of the thesis calculated the total factor productivity using the inputs and output at the district and then at the individual school student level and decomposed it into efficiency components. This study implements Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) using the DPIN software for the analysis. Panel information from 2013 to 2016 of the 112 districts is used for this study. Technical mix, and scale mix efficiency is calculated, and the determents that can explain the difference in the performance are measured. Results show that the health and education index are the key indicators that can explain the high performance of some districts. At the same time, the living standard shows a negative effort on efficiency. For analysis at a granular level is performed by considering district Mardan for further analysis. Data of 1330 respondents are collected from the three districts. Data related to student ability (cognitive and non-cognitive life skills), effort level, and financial resources are collected and along with the family level control variables. Data envelopment analysis is used for the analysis; it was found that the average males score is higher in non-cognitive life skills compared to females. Along with other indicator effort levels and financial resources shows a significant positive effect on student performance. The family level indicators play a major role in explaining the performance differences, when the individual student characteristics, family level characters, and school location and type were regressed on the technical efficiency. The finding of the thesis suggests that the government needsto make allocation decision based on the individual district’s needs. Learning environment, health, and living condition of each districts should be considered by the policy makers while making allocation decision. x Policy makers need to do resources planning and initiate a framework to measure efficiency in education sector that will help in managing the resources devoted to education. Results also suggests that by focusing on teaching methods and trainings can help improve the technical efficiency leading to improved student and school performance. In addition, student’s performances is improved by improving the non-cognitive skills like self-confidence, self-esteem, social sensitivity, stress management and thus build a great leader for the future.