Temoso Omphile, Myeki Lindikaya W
UNE Business School, University of New England, Armidale, NSW Australia.
Department Agricultural Economics, University of Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa.
Res High Educ. 2023;64(2):206-227. doi: 10.1007/s11162-022-09699-3. Epub 2022 May 27.
Recent high dropout and low graduation rates in the South African higher education institutions as well as government funding cuts and the economic uncertainty due to COVID-19 pandemic have heightened the urgency for the higher education sector to improve its productivity. However, empirical evidence on the productivity growth of the sector remains unexplored. To address this gap, we applied a Färe-Primont index approach to a panel data of 22 public universities over an 8-year period to measure total factor productivity (TFP) and its components-technological change, technical, scale and mix efficiency changes. We also used a feasible generalised least squares model to assess the determinants of productivity and efficiency growth. The results show that the average TFP of the sector for the study period was 0.631, led by historically advantaged universities (0.894), whilst historically disadvantaged universities had lower average TFP (0.823). During the period, TFP increased by 3.43%, largely driven by scale and mix efficiency changes (5.32%) and technical efficiency change (0.83%), whilst technical change declined by 1.80%. In terms of university types, the comprehensive universities achieved the largest TFP growth (6.13%) followed by traditional universities (4.85%), and technology universities by 1.41%. TFP growth was positively influenced by student graduation rates, quality of academics and academic-student ratios. Therefore, policy considerations to improve the sector's productivity and efficiency should consider investment on research and development, adoption of teaching and research innovations, re-skilling through training and education and aligning admission policies with staffing.
南非高等教育机构近期的高辍学率和低毕业率，以及政府资金削减和因新冠疫情导致的经济不确定性，加剧了高等教育部门提高其生产率的紧迫性。然而，关于该部门生产率增长的实证证据仍未得到探索。为了填补这一空白，我们对22所公立大学8年期间的面板数据应用了法尔-普里蒙特指数方法，以衡量全要素生产率（TFP）及其组成部分——技术变革、技术效率、规模效率和混合效率变化。我们还使用了可行广义最小二乘法模型来评估生产率和效率增长的决定因素。结果表明，研究期间该部门的平均全要素生产率为0.631，以历史上具有优势的大学（0.894）领先，而历史上处于劣势的大学平均全要素生产率较低（0.823）。在此期间，全要素生产率增长了3.43%，主要由规模和混合效率变化（5.32%）以及技术效率变化（0.83%）推动，而技术变革下降了1.80%。就大学类型而言，综合大学的全要素生产率增长最大（6.13%），其次是传统大学（4.85%），技术大学为1.41%。全要素生产率增长受到学生毕业率、学术质量和师生比的积极影响。因此，提高该部门生产率和效率的政策考量应考虑对研发的投资、采用教学和研究创新、通过培训和教育进行再培训，以及使招生政策与人员配置保持一致。
