Anna Olefir

Is Optimization an Opportunity? An Assessment of the Impact of Class Size and School Size on the Performance of Ukrainian Secondary Schools

Using a rich data set of almost the entire population of Ukrainian secondary schools, the authors estimate the effect of school size and class size on the performance of secondary schools on Ukraines External Independent Test. They find that larger schools tend to have somewhat better performance, both in terms of test scores and in terms of test participation. The size of this effect is relatively small, however, especially in rural areas for which the estimates are likely to be more clean estimates. Class size is found to be insignificant in most specifications and, if significant, of negligible size.

Skills for a Modern Ukraine

Ukraine’s economic progress has been uneven since the start of the transition in 1991. Productivity is low partly because of the slow pace of market-oriented reforms and the misallocation of the labor force. One the key factors limiting productivity gains is the inadequacy of workforce skills, the focus of this report. This study aims to provide policy makers in Ukraine with new evidence to influence the design and implementation of public policies on postsecondary education, labor market information and intermediation, and labor policies. To do so, it investigates the nature of skills valued in Ukraine’s labor market, identifies labor shortages, assesses constraints to firms’ operations, discusses how institutions affect investment in skills, and suggests policy options. The report provides granular evidence from original data from household and firm skills surveys, a data set of online job vacancies, and an assessment of workforce development institutions.

Class Size, School Size and the Size of the School Network.

In many transition countries, including Ukraine, decreases in population and fertility have led to substantial falls in the number of school-aged children. As a consequence, these countries now have school networks that consist of many small schools, leading many countries to consider reorganizing their networks by closing smaller schools and reallocating students. Using a rich data-set of almost the entire population of Ukrainian secondary schools, we estimate the effect of school size and class size on the performance of secondary schools on Ukraines External Independent Test. We find that larger schools tend to have somewhat better performance, both in terms of test scores and in terms of test participation. The size of this effect is relatively small, however, especially in rural areas for which the estimates are likely to be less biased. Class size is found to be insignificant in most specifications and, if significant, of negligible size. The importance of this finding for the ‘rationalization’ of the large school networks in Eastern Europe is discussed.