Transforming a national education system

Client goal
Loravia is a fictional country located in Eastern Europe with a population of 20 million. The
government of Loravia wants to achieve major improvements in both the quantity and quality of
education for its children. Because McKinsey has great deal of global knowledge and expertise in the
education sector, the Loravian Department of Education has asked McKinsey to provide advice on
how they can achieve this transformation in its school system.
Description of situation
Loravias free-market economy is still developing, having emerged from many decades under
communism. Recently, the government of Loravia put in place a new economic plan, with
aspirations to transform its economy and turbocharge its development so that it is well positioned
to compete with its European neighbors. The government of Loravia realizes that the education of
its children is a critical factor in meeting its economic development goals. It intends to transform its
school system over the next 10 years so that it is able to support its economic aspirations.
Schooling in Loravia is completely public, and is provided by a network of government run schools
which admit children from ages 5 through 18.
The first stage of this effort is to diagnose the current state of education in schools in Loravia to
determine how best to meet the governments future aspirations.
McKinsey study
McKinsey has been asked to support the Loravian Department of Education in diagnosing the
condition of its current school system, and in identifying the most important areas for improvement.
Helpful hints
Write down important information.
Feel free to ask interviewer for explanation of any point that is not clear to you.
Start case study







Practice case questions
QUESTION 1
What are the issues you would want to investigate in diagnosing the condition of the current school
system in Loravia?


Helpful hints
Take time to organize your thoughts before answering. This will help show your interviewer
that you have a logical approach and can think in an organized way.
Develop an overall approach before diving into details.
Reveal answer
A good answer might consider both the quantity and the quality of available education and how
these influence key education outcomes, such as performance in key assessments. Such an answer
might also suggest comparisons with other countries (such as regional neighbors, or comparable
countries in size or economic output).
Issues related to quantity might include:
Access to education and how this differs by age, region and demographic groups
Supply of teachers and education resources both at a national level and a regional or local
level
Spend on education nationally and regionally/locally
Issues related to quality might include:
Quality of the current curriculum, for example the subjects taught in schools and the
attainment/knowledge objectives
Quality of teaching, for example the qualification level of teachers, results of teacher
assessments
A very good answer might acknowledge a need to consider Loravia's broader economic objectives in
the diagnostic or the current overall structure of its school system, for example:
What industries and sectors will be a priority for Loravia in the future and what skills will be
needed?
How well does the current education system develop these skills?
Should alternative models to a public education system be considered, for example
independent or private schools?
QUESTION 2
The chart below shows some important education-related measures for Loravia, and also for some
comparison countries. Three sets of comparison countries have been used. In the first set are some
of Loravias neighboring countries in Eastern Europe. In the second set are some of the most
developed economies in Europe. Finally, in the third set are some countries that have similar sized
economies to Loravia on a per person basis (similar GDP per capita).
What can you observe from this chart?


Helpful hints
Take some time to look at the information and note any observations you have.
Challenge yourself to identify trends that are not immediately obvious within the data.
If you need to, ask your interviewer some clarifying questions. For example, your interviewer
can tell you that a higher score indicates a higher level of average student achievement in
the international assessment.
Reveal answer
A good answer might include the following observations:
Loravia spends a higher amount on education compared to the majority of its neighbors and
its economic peers.
Loravia also has a lower student/teacher ratio compared to the majority of its neigbors and
economic peers.
Despite both of the above, Loravia has one of the lowest international assessment scores.
Broadly, there seems to be no direct relationship between student to teacher ratio and
education outcome as measured by the international assessment.
Developed countries clearly spend more per student on education and have better
outcomes as measured by the international assessment. However, among Loravias peers
and neighbors there is no clear relationship between spending and education outcomes.
A very good answer might suggest some reasons for the trends observed, draw some conclusions
and/or refer back to the initial aims of the work:
The variation in the number of students per school is likely to reflect the geographical
distribution of the populations of the countries.
While student/teacher ratios and per student funding are levers that could be considered
important in improving education quality, the data here indicates that these may not in
themselves provide the sought for improvement. Issues such as teacher quality and
curriculum content should be investigated.
The international assessment may not be the best measure of the skills that will be needed
in the future Loravian economy. Further research on the international assessment would be
needed to determine how seriously its results should be taken. For example, if language
abilities or technology skills are important for the Loravian economy, what are the best
assessments/measures of these?
QUESTION 3
One of the clients at the Loravian Department of Education mentions the example of neighbor
country C, which outperforms all of Loravia's economic peers and neighbors in the international
assessment. She believes that the more concentrated school structure in this country is a big reason
for its better outcomes in the international assessment. She suggests that having larger, less
fragmented schools allows for more effective selection and training of teachers, leading to improved
education outcomes for the students.
What would be the reduction in the total number of schools in Loravia if it were to reach the same
average school size as Neighbor C?


Your interviewer can provide you with the following information if requested:
15% of Loravia's population are currently attending school.
Helpful hints
Don't feel rushed into performing calculations. Take your time.
Talk your interviewer through your steps so that you can demonstrate an organized
approach.

Reveal answer
A good answer to this question might involve the following steps:
There are 3 million school children in Loravia (15% x 20 million).
There are currently 6,000 schools across Loravia (=3 million school children divided by 500
per school).
Assuming the same school size as Neighbor C would give 3,750 schools across Loravia.
Therefore, 2,250 schools would be closed (or 37.5& of schools).
A very good answer to this question might acknowledge that this is probably an unrealistic target.
Although some consolidation of schools may be possible in certain areas, a wholesale restructure
could be counterproductive, given that many students and teachers would now have to travel much
longer distances to school. This could generate other problems such as staff shortages or poor
attendance, and could create much higher financial burden on the government and families.
QUESTION 4
Based on the issues and information discussed so far, what further issues would you want to
investigate as part of the diagnostic of the current education system in Loravia?


Helpful hints
Take some time to consider what has been investigated in previous questions and what the
conclusions have been.
Summarize for the interviewer what has been determined so far. What further
investigations might be necessary?
Keep your eye on the overall objective. Refer back to the set of issues that were outlined in
Question 1 as you answer this question.
Reveal answer
A good answer to this question might outline what issues we have attempted to investigate thus far
and what has still to be investigated:
We have looked mostly at quantity issues (for example, teacher and school supply,
education spend) and how these relate to a single education outcome.
We could continue to investigate these issues, and there are likely to be other measures of
education outcomes that could be considered, such as alternative assessments, progression
to post-secondary education or employment outcomes.
We have also yet to investigate the quality issues, such as the quality of the curriculum and
of the teachers.
A very good answer might color these issues with the conclusions from earlier questions, for
example:
Care should be taken not to address the problem purely with quantity measures (for
example, improving student/teacher ratios or increasing spend per student) as there is no
clear indication so far that these would necessarily result in significant improvements in the
situation.
Quality issues are likely to be important. We saw previously that, despite higher spending
compared to its economic peers and a lower student/teacher ratio, Loravia was still
underperforming in the international assessment. This indicates that the quality of teaching
and the content of the curriculum are important issues to investigate thoroughly.