Cost-effectiveness in education

Judgments about cost effectiveness are based upon scrutiny of the relationship between costs and effects.

In education, judgements about cost-effectiveness are likely to err because costs and effects cannot be easily measured. Indeed, it is not clear precisely which costs and effects should be included in attempts to make these judgements, as many writers over the past twenty years have commented (e.g. Benson, 1961; Vaizey, 1962). With so much uncertainty surrounding both costs and effects, it is hardly surprising that educational cost-effectiveness is regarded as difficult to judge. In turn, changes in cost effectiveness after the introduction of new educational media may be hard to measure.

Consider first the costs of formal education conducted in traditional institutions such as schools and colleges. Sheultz(1963) recommends that analysis should include not only direct costs (e.g teachers, salaries, materials, supplies, maintenance costs) but also imputed costs (e.g value of tax exemption on school buildings, value of services, such as fire protection, provided free by government and, in some circumstances, even the value of earnings forgone by. students). In fact, few studies in a forth- coming Johns Hopkins volume (perraton, inpress) sometimes mention such costs but usually do not attempt to assess or include them.

Similarly, opinions differ regarding costs of non-formal education conducted outside traditional institutions. Adults participating in a voluntary information technology education project may well have widely varying levels of education and of knowledge of IT. Should these variations, be taken into account in determining costs? A project using radio to teach people in rural areas may be costed without reference to the cost of the transmission network or of the time of local unpaid animators.