Cost-benefit analysis in educational planning

1 Cost-benefit analysis in educational planning Third edition Maureen Woodhall Paris 1992 UNESCO : International Institute for educational planning Fundamentals of educational planning -- 13 Included in the series:* 2. The relation of educational plans to eu ic and social planning , R. Poigmznt 4 planning and the educational adminisbator. Beeby 5. The social context of educational planning , CA. Anderson 6. The costing of educational plans. J. Vaizey, JD. Chesswm 7. The gwoblems of rural education, VL. Gr uhr 8. educational planning ; the adviser s role, TCurle 9. Demographic aspects of educational planning , Ta Ngoc C. 10. The analysis of educational costs and expenditure. J. HaJJak 11. The professional identity of the educational planner, A. Curk 12. The conditions for success in educational planning , Ruscm 18. planning educational assistance for the second development decade, HM.

2 Philips 20. Realistic educational planning , KJ. McKinnon 21. planning education in relation to rural development, Coverdale 22. Alternatives and decisions in educational planning , JD. Montgomery 23. planning the school curriculum, A. by 24. Cost factors in planning educational technological systems. Jamison 25. The planner and lifelong education., P. Furter 26. Education and employment a critical appraisal, M. Carnoy 27. planning teacher demand and supply, P. Williams 28. planning early childhood care and education in developing countries. A. Heron 29. Communication media in education for low-income countries. 30. The planning of ndurmal education, Evans 31. Education, training and the traditional sector, J. Hallak, F. Caillods 32. Higher education and employment: the IIEP experience in five less-developed 33. educational planning as a social press, T. Molan 34.

3 Higher education and social stratification: an international comparative study, 35. A conceptual framework for the development of lifelong education in the USSR, 36. Education in austerity: options for planners, K. Lavin 37. educational planning in Asia, R. Roy-Singh 38. Education projects: elaboration., financing and management, A. Mognen 39. Increasing teacher effectiveness, L. W. Anderson 40. National and school-based curriculum development, A. Lavy 41. planning human resources: methods. experiences and practices, O. Bertrand * Also published in French. other titles to appear. 13. Cost-benefit analysis in educati~nal plarming, M. Wdhall McAnany. Mayo countries, G. Psacharopoulos. Sanyal T. Husdn A. Vkulislavlev The Swedish International Development Authority (SIDA) has provided financial assistance for the publication of this booklet. First published in 1970 by the United Nations educational , Scientific and Cultural Organization 7 place de Fontenoy, 75700, Paris Second edition (revised) published in 1980 Third edition (revised) published in 1992 Printed in France by Imprimerie Gauthier-Villars, 75018 Paris Cover design by Bruno Pf ffli @ UNESCO 1970,1980 and 1992 ISBN 92-803-1144-1 Fundamentals of educational planning The booklets in this series are written primarily for two groups: those engaged in -- or preparing for -- educational planning and administration, especially in developing countries; and others, less specialized, such as senior government officials and civic leaders, who seek a more general understanding of educational planning and of how it can be of help to over-all national development.

4 They are devised to be of use either for private study or in formal training programmes. The modem conception of educational planning has attracted specialists from many disciplines. Each of them tends to see planning rather differently. The purpose of some of the booklets is to help these people explain their particular points of view to one another and to the younger men and women who are being trained to replace them some day. But behind this diversity there is a new and growing unity. Specialists and administrators in developing countries are coming to accept certain basic principles and practices that owe something to the separate disciplines but are yet a unique contribution to knowledge by a body of pioneers who have had to attack together educational problems more urgent and difficult than any the world had ever known. So other booklets in the series represent this common experience, and provide in short compass some of the best available ideas and experience conceming selected aspects of educational planning .

5 Since readers will vary so widely in their backgrounds, the authors have been given the difficult task of introducing their subjects from the beginning, explaining technical terms that may be commonplace to some but a mystery to others, and yet adhering 5 Fundamentals of educational pIanning to scholarly standards and never writing down to their readers, who, except in some particular speciality, are in no sense unsophisticated. This approach has the advantage that it makes the booklets intelligible to the general reader. Although the series, under the general editorship of Dr. C. E. Beeby of the New Zealand Council for educational Research in Wellington, has been planned on a definite pattem, no attempt has been made to avoid differences, or even contradictions, in the views expressed by the authors. It would be premature, in the Institute s view, to lay down a neat and tidy official doctrine in this new and rapidly evolving field of knowledge and practice.

6 Thus, while the views are the responsibility of the authors, and may not always be shared by UNESCO or the Institute, they are believed to warrant attention in the intemational market-place of ideas. In short, this seems the appropriate moment to make visible a cross-section of the opinions of authorities whose combined experience covers many disciplines and a high proportion of the countries of the world. meprinted from the first edition of this booklet, 1970) 6 Foreword In the mass of writing on educational planning over the past decade no topic has incurred the suspicion of teachers and administrators more than Cost-benefit analysis . To be sure, they accepted gladly enough the economists conclusion that education is a good investment -- they were already convinced of that without the benefit of mathematical models -- but they shied away from the corollary that, in the competition for limited funds, the effectiveness of education might be compared with that of new roads, fertilizers, or factories, and they vehemently insisted that the most important products of education must continue to slip through any economic net, however cunningly woven.

7 The economists did little to allay their fears, they were so busy arguing about the subject amongst themselves that they had little time to explain what it was all about in language intelligible to the teacher. This booklet is intended to bring the practising educationist into the picture, through some economists will also read it with interest. It begins with almost deceptive simplicity but goes on to discuss some of the difficult problems that have worried the economists themselves -- and without recourse to jargon. Whatever lingering suspicions the educationist may have of Maureen Woodhall qua economist, after reading this essay he cannot fail to admire her as a teacher; we were fortunate in getting her to explain one profession to the other. She makes no exaggerated claims for the techniques she expounds; she insists that Cost-benefit analysis cannot be the sole criterion for educational planning but that such an analysis should be an important element in decision making.

8 All planning consists of a 7 Fundamentals of educational planning choice between alternatives. If Cost-benefit analysis does no more than serve as a reminder of this truth, it will have practical significance. Any educational administrator who ignores this truth in the future will be asking for trouble. Particularly in developing countries, the allocation for education over recent years has absorbed an increasing proportion of the national budgets, and ministers of finance are the last persons to forget that there are attractive altemative ways of spending the nation s money and that the economists have offered them a tool, however rough, that is said to measure the effectiveness of different forms of expenditure. So the administrator who presses for increased finance for the schools must be prepared to support his case with arguments more sophisticated-both economically and socially -than many of us have employed in the past.

9 Knowing the sweeping assumptions that lie behind some numerical statements of both costs and benefits in education, the administrator may on occasion suspect the arithmetic of the conclusions, but the reasoning behind the formulae is not so open to question, and the sooner he tries to master it the better, because he is likely to meet it increasingly often in his official life. This booklet may be of help to him. Miss Woodhall graduated in philosophy, politics, and economics at Oxford, and is now Research Officer in the Research Unit in the Economics of Education at the University of London Institute of Education. During 1969 she was Associate Staff Member in the IIEP where she lectured and assisted with the current research project on cost analysis . She helped with the preparation of the UNESCO Intemational Conference on educational planning and with the writing of the report.

10 She has contributed articles to economic journals, and has collaborated with Mark Blaug in a number of papers and books (the latest, The causes of graduate unemployment in India, 1969) on the economics of education. G. E. BEEBY General editor of the series (Reprinted from the first edition of this booklet, 1970) 8 Contents 1. 2. Measurement of costs 3. Measurement of benefits 4. 5. 6. Introduction: the purpose of Cost-benefit analysis Measurement of a discounted cash flow Rate of retum on investment in education Theoretical objections to Cost-benefit analysis of education Interrelationship between ability and education Education as a filter Relationship between earnings and productivity Spill-over benefits of education Effects of unemployment on rates of retum Relationship between the present and the future The meaning of the private rate of retum 7. Calculation of rates of retum 8.