Productivity and Efficiency in Education

The article defines productivity and efficiency in education and analyses their dynamics. Efficiency means spending less while producing the same level of output: it tends to be associated with budget cuts, increased workloads, industrial conflict and reduced long-term productive capacity. Productivity means producing more from the same level of input: productivity goals become more important when the volume and range of outputs are expanding. Productivity improvement comes not from working harder, but from working smarter. Productivity goals provide the best basis for management-worker agreement, and such agreement is essential to productivity policies. The keys to productivity advance are collaborative planning and work organisation, skill utilisation and output-based planning. Educational technologies can also contribute.