The question of what makes schools effective has been a frequent concern in educational policy literature. Research on the determinants of school and student outcomes is extensive and considers a vast set of school resources. School size is one of many factors that can affect school quality, and a widely researched and debated topic in the literature. Practice and research show that there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ recipe for creating effective schools, and this is also the case for school size. Moreover, school size policy is a salient issue that attracts the attention of policy-makers, school reformers, parent groups, community organisations and professionals. School size can become a sensitive issue, especially when size policies entail the restructuration or closure of schools.

Debates (and research) on school size mostly revolve around two different, but intrinsically related, issues: the implications of size for school quality, and for fiscal efficiency. Scholars have tended to treat these two issues separately, focusing either on the effects of size on school effectiveness or on school efficiency.

Due to demographic, economic and political trends that will be reviewed below, small schools have become a pressing policy issue in many countries and regions. The sustainability of small schools is threatened by falling rolls, and many small schools across the OECD have been closed or consolidated over the last few decades. Concerns about the viability of small schools are based on the quality of the education provided by these schools and their maintenance costs (Howley et al., 2011). There is considerable variation in the size of schools across countries and regions. This variation reflects differences in population dispersion, geography, economic activity, but it is also a result of professional, political and social struggles (Howley et al., 2011).

School restructuring as a means to have larger schools or to confront underutilised schools has frequently taken the form of consolidation. Consolidation is the process of combining, dissolving or reorganising schools or school districts into one unit (Killeen and Sipple, 2000). As a consequence of consolidation students are relocated to another school (or a new school building) (Howley et al., 2011).

However, large school size cannot be achieved in all contexts. In some situations school consolidation or restructuring can be very problematic or even unfeasible. Increasing school size can be considered a policy option in densely populated areas with more than one school in them. In these situations, it should be possible to reorganise or merge schools. However, in areas with low population density, increasing school size may not be an option for policy-makers. This is the situation in many rural and remote areas, where schools facing declining rolls do not have the possibility of attracting more students, and where consolidation may be problematic for different reasons such as travel distances and lack of adequate facilities.

The rest of the paper proceeds as follows: Part 2 presents the methodology applied in this literature review; Part 3 introduces different trends that have affected school enrolment and school size policies in the last decades; Part 4 presents the different mechanisms through which size effects take place, these effects are presented separately for the quality of education (effectiveness mechanisms) and its efficiency;

Part 5 reviews different country approaches to school size policies, in particular the practice of school consolidation and alternatives to it; Part 6 presents the empirical evidence on the effects of size on school effectiveness and efficiency available, the implications of these results as well as the limitations and challenges presented in the empirical studies; lastly, Part 7 presents some concluding remarks.

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