Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Author-Name: Maria Luisa Martí Selva
Author-Name: Rosa Puertas Medina
Author-Name: Consuelo Calafat Marzal
Title:  Calidad y eficiencia de las Universidades Públicas Españolas
Abstract: RESUMEN:La eficiencia y calidad han sido tratados en la literatura como conceptos diferentes y en ningún caso comparables. En este trabajo perseguimos un doble objetivo. En primer lugar se calcularán los niveles de eficiencia de las distintas universidades públicas. En segundo lugar, con la idea de conocer la importancia de los principales rankings de calidad publicados sobre estas Universidades, se analizará si existe alguna relación entre estos parámetros y los niveles de eficiencia previamente calculados. Ello permitirá determinar si las universidades eficientes son las mejor valoradas por el mercado, o por el contrario existe una percepción distorsionada.En el artículo se aplicará el análisis envolvente de datos (técnica DEA) para la medición de la eficiencia, construyendo los inputs y los outputs a partir de la información facilitada por la Conferencia de Rectores de las Universidades Españolas (CRUE) para el año 2008. Los resultados manifiestan que las clasificaciones analizadas pueden interpretarse como una herramienta-guía para conocer la situación de cada universidad dentro del panorama español. Sin embargo, ninguna de ellas por si sola es determinante para situar a una universidad entre las mejores. Además, el nivel de eficiencia no puede considerarse como un completo reflejo de la calidad tal y como está valorada en los rankings. En definitiva, se puede concluir que las universidades españolas han obtenido altos niveles de eficiencia y, sin embargo, estos resultados no siempre coinciden con la clasificación aportada por los distintos rankings publicados.ABSTRACT:Universities are institutions intended for the transmission of knowledge and the promotion of research, playing a crucial role in the economic development of a country. The implantation of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) in Spain has addressed the university system in a bid to educational quality in all areas and institutions, surfacing concepts as excellence, competence, accountability, transparency and efficiency.The need to know the quality and efficiency of universities is a matter of increasing concern to society more, since they are institutions for the training of future employees. There is no consensus and methodological procedures are sometimes fuzzy. However, the publication of different rankings has been happening in order to help potential customers make a decision and provide guidance to employers on finding graduates or graduate students. These are indicators to identify the most suitable and appropriate to the needs existing institutions.In this changing educational environment, the objective of the work presented is twofold; first a production function that will calculate the levels of efficiency of Spanish public universities will be built. These results will facilitate the differentiation between fully efficient and those that could enhance your output with the available resources.Secondly, the idea of knowing the importance of key quality rankings published on these universities, will examine whether there is any relationship between the valuation of these rankings and levels previously calculated efficiency. This will determine whether the efficient universities are best valued by the market, or else there is a distorted perception. The rankings used for comparison are:-    Ranking of Financial Analysis and Industrial Institute (IAIF) of the Complutense University of Madrid. Provides an "academic" rating, and its sources of information and the INE CRUE, allowing assess teaching and research in Spanish universities face 69.-    Expanded Ranking of Shanghai, in its application to the Spanish case. This is an index of "academic" type performed both globally and for individual countries. Now a basic reference to know the position of universities, constituting a key factor in his immediate future.-    Ranking of World Journal. It is a "non-formal" classification based on the subjective opinion of a collective. However, it is one of those preferentially utilized by performed frequently and have very complete information.There are major differences in the methodology used to obtain each one of them, even the orientation of the institutions is not homogeneous. So although the activities of a university professor focus on teaching and research, many universities have directed their resources towards research because of academic assessment systems and criteria for selection of teaching and research staff. All this is reflected in the different results in quality between some universities and others.The efficiency measurement was performed using the data envelopment analysis (DEA technique), building inputs and outputs from the information provided by the Conference of Rectors of Spanish Universities (CRUE) for 2008. The DEA is a nonparametric technique for measuring the relative efficiency of homogenous units. This method is one of the most used in the presence of multiple inputs and outputs to determine which are the best observations by comparing each one with all possible variables\' linear combinations of the rest of the sample, then it can be defined with them the empirical production boundary. Thus, the efficiency of each unit analyzed is measured as the distance to the boundary.The university system is proposed as an industry where a number of inputs are transformed into outputs. Some authors suggest that the objectives of the university are teaching, research and other public services oriented society, through the transfer of knowledge, science and culture, and from these functions are specified variables used. The outputs are defined by:o    Number of graduates: represents the activity of teaching graduate students and those who own centers studied branches of humanities, social and legal, experimental, health sciences and techniques are included.o    Income from research: the research activity represents both as other services oriented society. Refers to income liquidated applied research, whose geographical origin of contracting is provincial, regional, national, European and other countries. o    Doctoral Theses: exclusively represents the research activities of each university. It is the total number of Theses in the fields of arts and humanities, social and legal sciences, sciences, health sciences, engineering and architecture.While the variables representing the inputs are:o    Number of students enrolled: undergraduate students and official graduate students will attend lessons master or doctorate centers.o    Current expenditure necessary for the proper functioning of the education institutions (office equipment, supplies, transportation, publications, etc.).o    Number of full-time teachers: teachers’ total employees and contractors are included.The empirical work has focused on the analysis of efficiency of 44 Spanish public universities spread throughout the 17 regions of the country. The statistics of these variables show significant differences between some universities and others. In some cases the standard deviation exceeds the mean value of the variable (research revenue). The observation of the sample also reflects a relative concentration around some variables. For graduates, the top 10 universities with the highest number of graduates representing 41.43% of all graduates in 2008. In the case of income from research and theses read the concentration increases a little with the volume of the top ten universities for more than 50% for the two variables.The efficiency results for each of the universities represent an indicator of good/bad management by these institutions at a given time. In the study shows that there is little difference in efficiency between the Spanish universities. Specifically, 18 institutions are at 100%, while the rest fully efficient while not exhibit superior performance to 80%.From a geographical point of view, be seen as the 17 regions considered only 6 of them have no efficient university (Galicia, Castilla-León, Asturias, Aragon, Balearic Islands and Canary Islands). Conversely, Cataluña is the region with the highest concentration as efficient centers of the 7 universities are 4 of them completely, followed by Valencia having a 3 out of 5 total.If we analyze what is the characterization of these institutions through the inputs included in the model, more than half of the universities in this group could be described as "large" when adopting this approach satisfies the condition that the amount of input is higher than the group average.The efficiency results have been compared with different rankings to determine the possible correlation between them. For the Shanghai index is absolute disparity, as the first university to appear and the last are fully efficient. In IAIF, although the results are not as extreme, there are six universities efficient below average. Finally, published by the newspaper El Mundo is what brings greater proximity between efficiency and quality, all efficient universities are above average for this ranking.Furthermore, if the three indices are compared with each other disparities are also large. For example, the Carlos III University in third place in El Mundo journal, while the other two are among the last places.However, despite these differences, some similarities are detected. For example, Autonomous University of Barcelona, PompeuFabra, the Barcelona, Polytechnic of Valencia, Valencia EG or Universityof Granada, being totally efficient also occupy important positions in all three rankings analyzed. Therefore, the results show that classifications in question can be interpreted as a guiding tool to determine the status of each university within the Spanish panorama, although none of them alone is decisive. Furthermore, the level of efficiency cannot be regarded as a complete reflection of the quality as it is valued in the rankings.In summary, we can say that there is not a homogeneous indicator that facilitates comparative analysis of all Spanish universities, as well as a continuous system of quality control
Classification-JEL: R1
Keywords: Eficiencia, Calidad, Universidades, Efficiency, Quality, universities
Pages: 135-154
Volume: 1
Year: 2014
File-URL: http://www.revistaestudiosregionales.com/documentos/articulos/pdf-articulo-2434.pdf
File-Format: Application/pdf
Handle: RePEc:rer:articu:v:1:y:2014:p:135-154