Performance Evaluation of Technical Institutions: An Application of Data Envelopment Analysis

Technical institutions (TIs) are playing an important role in making India a knowledge hub of this century. There is still great diversity in their relative performance, which is a matter of concern to the education planner. This article employs the method of data envelopment analysis (DEA) to compare the relative efficiency of TIs in India. The identification of the strongest and the weakest parameters of various TIs could be very useful in improving their efficiency and performance. Mathematically, DEA determines the best weights for each input and output for a particular unit under study so as to maximize its relative efficiency. The results are insightful to the educational planner as it identifies priority areas for each technical institute, which can improve the performance. This article also identifies some generic insights from this study. This article is one of the few published studies that evaluate the performance of technical institutes in India. (Contains 1 figure and 2 tables.)