System waste in education and research: A Delphi study in India

A concept of system waste has been developed, and reported in the literature, to focus explicitly on waste and its reduction. In this study, which is a part of the authors' ongoing research on system waste, an attempt has been made to estimate current and future system waste in education and research (EDR) in India. The concept of system waste, which is defined as “any unnecessary input to and/or any undesirable output from any system,” is complex, multifaceted, subjective and not generally clearly understood. Its study is a fit case for the use of qualitative group problem-solving techniques. Delphi is the technique which has been used here to learn about system waste. A two-round Delphi study was conducted in 1990 in EDR in which teachers, educational administrators, planners, and parents participated. The paper describes the study and its results.