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Total Quality Management in

Education
Twana Salih

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Total Quality Management in Education

This paper is published in Zanco Journal , the Scientific Journal of Salahaddin

University – Arbil , No. 36. 2008

By

Twana Salih
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Abstract

Many of countries attempt to apply the same concepts and methods or

setting of Total Quality management to effective and improve the Educational

systems in comparison the way things are done in a wide variety of other

organizations. I Reflect on how different the concepts and methods are? And

what they seem to do for, and how may TQM influence education? I’m

concerning here on main indicators applied in some of EU countries and USA?

The main question was how different education system can compare their quality

by using same indicators, In united state most of educational institute depends

on self confidence which make them to think about profit and attractiveness for

their education institute, while in EU countries the education depends on public

confidence, which make the accountability is first interesting for governments,

thus providing evidence for taxpayer value for money. That’s why the result will

be different to compare these two systems by Total quality management.

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Introduction

Total Quality Management (TQM) was first espoused by Dr. W. Edwards

Deming in the late 1950's. His ideas were not accepted by US industry but were

heartily endorsed by Japan in their recovery from World War II. Largely as a

result of the implementation of TQM, `Made in Japan' has changed from a

derogatory term to high praise, (Winn,1998, 24) So it had its roots in the post-war

renaissance of Japanese industry, strongly influenced by the ideas of a small

number of American advisers, notably Deming and Juran. This concept of quality

has steadily developed since then in Japan, the USA and Europe. By the early

1980s, governments and leaders of industry in the West had become very

concerned at their poor level of industrial productivity, and thus Competitiveness,

when compared, particularly, with the Japanese. (Pereira, et al, 2)

Total Quality management is not a new concept. However, it has applied

widely after Second World War in Japan and later in USA and Europe, especially

in the Business and industry. But it seems that it has come to use recently in

Europe and United state for improving Educational system as well. Dealing with

quality in the area of education came to the fore due to the economic and political

changes in the 1970s. As a result, more and more attention has been paid to

efficient utilization of resources, to successful operation of the institutional

system, to the issue of quality and efficiency of education, and to the

establishment of equal opportunities for each and every student.

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In this paper, I will reflect on the issue of quality assurance of education in

European countries and united state. The basis of this paper is the contribution of

TQM approach to change the quality level of Education. This issue seems that is

not easy task to make comparison between applying same approach or

principles in Education for different countries, it may depend on different

programs has applied and different languages and cultures and society customs.

However the same or common principles be applied to different educational

system can not expect same quality out comes. Thereby, examining this

assumption can be the cure aspect for my target and purpose in this paper.

Finally, the paper will include in addition to the introduction, some other

sections that analysis the different concepts of quality in education and the tools

or indicators has used in measuring the quality of education with mentioning of

cost and effects of this indicators. And in the last part of the paper I’m going to

analysis some application has done in EU countries and USA, which include also

kind of comparing between both applications. And the paper will finish with brief

conclusion of the results and some evaluations.

Quality Concepts in Education

The concept of quality assurance is not a new one, but the range of the

terminology and methodologies which are now used to define, develop and apply

it, are relatively recent. There are a great number of different perceptions of what

is meant by quality in education. Varying definitions have been suggested, but it

has not been possible to reach consensus. The most widely accepted criterion of
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quality in education is probably “fitness for purpose”. According to this concept

quality is gauged in terms of whether or not a product or service meets its stated

purpose or purposes (Maguad.1999, 164). On the other hand, Quality is defined

by first identifying the people who use or benefit from the products and services

being offered. These customers are then asked of their requirements and their

expectations. Then the providers apply their expertise to transform the desires

being expressed into a product or service that meets if not exceeds their

expectations. This is how the customer orientation is developed. (Maguad.1999,

159) But who are then the customers of education? Educational customers may

be classified as either internal or external. Internal customers include students

and teachers. External customers are parents, higher-level institutions, church

constituencies, employers, the government, and the community/society at large.

Each of these has certain requirements and expectations, which must be taken

into account by the educational institution (Maguad.1999, 159)

However there is still a question: what is the purpose of education?” Then

the different approaches to quality reflect different conceptions of education itself.

That is, Quality can be examined from at least three different perspectives. First,

it can be examined by fact, that is, in terms of whether the product or service

meets the specified requirements. And also can be examined in terms of whether

the process and system produce the product or service as intended. Finally,

quality can be examined by perception, that is, in terms of whether customer

expectations are met or not. In summary, TQM is a process that promotes

bringing the right people together in teams where the boundaries between
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organizations have been eliminated and where the participants on the teams

have been empowered to make changes (Clifford, 1999, 63)

Measuring quality in Education

The increasing demands for good quality education by students and

society imply that Educational Institution now face similar pressures that the

business sector has been facing for decades. Thereby, finding the concrete

measurements to evaluate the quality of education have offered by any institution

can be improved in the best way. But the problem was “the basements” in which

these measurements have to be based on, because education has a different

aspect in compare to other business fields; it is dealing with the quality of

knowledge and the way to provide it to the students, which is not easy task

anyway.

Traditionally measures are used in performance improvement, so they

should give information about how well processes of education and people are

doing and motivate them to perform better in the future. So that, these measures

basically has based on two aspects: cost and scientific prestige. In order to

determined and evaluate performance in education and find appropriate

measurements have to take in our account that this measurements must be

designed, developed and maintained by people who own the processes

concerned, either the educational institute have owned by public sector or by

privet sector which may have different advantage and different perspectives.

We may find some main measurement in which can be approved by both

side of privet sector or public sector. These measures are designed to measure
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progress which is important in five main areas effectiveness, efficiency,

productivity, quality and impact: (Kaplanis, 5)

1. Effectiveness it may be define as:

Actual output
Effectiveness = ------------------------
Expected output

Effectiveness measures should reflect whether the institutional owner(s) or

process owners are achieving the desired goals or results. This measure with the

respect of the quality of education may include:

 Quality: grade of students graduates, or level of services.

 Quantity: number of graduates, degrees, research papers, etc.

 Timeliness: speed of response, cycle time (years students need to finish a

course).

 Cost or price: cost per student.

2. Efficiency it may be defined as:

Resources actually used

Efficiency = -------------------------------------------
Resources planned to be used

Efficiency is concerned with the percentage resources actually used over

the resources that were planned to be used. All inputs can be subjected to this

measurement; we may use student or staff efficiency, equipment, materials,

information efficiency, etc.

3. Productivity it may define as:

Outputs
Productivity = ------------------------
Inputs
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Productivity measures should be designed to relate all outputs of process

to its inputs, which may include all inputs has used in the process and all outputs

has gotten from it.

4. Other quality Indicators

There are many other measurements or indicators may reflect also some

of framework of the quality in education. As I mentioned above the quality

measures should reflect positively whether we are doing good job in terms of

customers satisfaction and whether the designs, systems, and finding the

solutions to problems we face in the process are all meeting the requirements we

were desired. This other measurement may include; number of university or

school leavers, number of drop outs, or resist (not in time graduation). Also the

contact hours between students and instructors, this may define as (Kaplanis,

15)

Students X hours
Contacts hours = ----------------------------
Staff x hours

Maybe there are even more indicators we can take in our accounts when

we measure the quality for any institution regardless to the institution is belong to

privet sector or public sector, for examples, the numbers of professors are

visiting from other countries this university, and the Employability rate can be

define like ;

Numbers of graduated students are employed

Employability rate = --------------------------------------------------------------------
Numbers of graduated students are tried to
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This may inform about the number of graduated are employed from this

university.

Some applications in EU and USA

All countries have some kind of quality assurance mechanism in place, although

they differ significantly in terms of purpose, focus and organization. In Europe

countries usually the institutional education are almost running by the public

sector, in the contrary in United state and Canada most of universities and

schools are owned by privet sector or even public sector but the education is not

free of fee, this may make a potential deference between this two system of

education. The first one may focus on level and quality of knowledge and level of

services are provided in their institutional system of education, because, Public

schools depend on public confidence and therefore should understand current

and future community needs, meet student learning requirements, and exceed

the community's expectations(Johnson,1999, 469). While in united state the

privet sector or even public sector look for maximizing their profits, because they

depend on their own confidence, this may make them think about how to make

this organization be more attractive for costumers.

United State is a big and wide country in which can not be possible in

small section like this to evaluate and cover all part of the quality of educational

system there. However we need some basic data to get general idea before to

go to the more details. We found that as the U.S. population increases, so does

its enrollment at all levels of education. At the elementary and secondary levels,

growth is due largely to the increase in the size of the school-age population. At
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the postsecondary level, both population growth and increasing enrollment rates

help explain rising enrollments. Adult education is also increasing due to

demographic shifts in the age of the U.S. (Wirt, 2004. VI) Changes in enrollment

have implications for the demand for educational resources. Enrollments change

due to fluctuations in population size and rates of enrollment. A shift in the rate of

enrollment implies a change in the enrollment behavior of the population, which,

in turn, may reflect changes in the perceived value of formal education or the

time taken to complete degrees among youth ages 7–13 and ages 14–17,

enrollment rates were very high and remained stable.

In the United States many colleges and universities are now

experimenting with TQM to ensure that quality, i.e. consistently high levels of

college learning as an outcome is no longer left to chance. Universities and

colleges have applied TQM to both the administrative aspects of the university’s

operations and, to a lesser extent, the academic aspects (i.e. teaching, research,

etc). For example we found that TOM teams at the University of California-Santa

Cruz campus have tackled problems in the faculty review process, faculty

resource budgeting, provision control, the chemistry lab supply process, travel

accounting and the student check disbursement process, to name just a few.

They found TQM to be inexpensive to undertake and relatively quick to complete,

while achieving significant improvement (Clifford, 1999, 62)

American educational institutes depend on market-oriented .then, in a

market-oriented view on higher education; the institutions are responsible for the

results and the follow-up of quality assurance, without any governmental

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intervention. In this view, the institution has full autonomy. it is not likely that in

higher education systems that are funded predominantly by the government,

such a market-oriented view will be realized (Scheele, 2000, 461).

Many of researchers found that in United States the enrollment of all level

of education is increasing when the financial aid increases. For example some

indicators mention that over the past decade, the share of income needed to pay

for college expenses after financial aid at public four-year institutions has

increased from 19% to 25%. In the same period, the state of North Carolina has

increased its commitment to financially needy students. Nonetheless, the share

of income, including financial aid, needed to pay for college is fairly large

compared with other states, during the same period; the proportion of students

completing certificates and degrees relative to the number enrolled has

increased by 17% (Breneman, 2005, 7)

Thereby, using any of the indicators has mentioned in above section, may

give us misleading idea about American quality of education when we compare it

with Europe quality by the same measurements. Because the system in US

depends on self confidence while in Europe depend mostly on governmental

confidence, that’s making the comparison more difficult. For example the number

of graduations will depend on the increasing of financial aid not on the

performances of education quality.

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Europe is characterized by mostly public higher education systems in

which institutions and programmed derive their formal degree awarding capacity

directly or indirectly from the state. This has happened partly because of the

diversity of both degrees and institutions. However public knowledge about their

quality is often opaque across national borders, and =even sometimes within one

country (ESIB, 2002, 17). In the European dimension, quality assurance, as

foreseen in the Bologna Declaration, (1) is a vital aspect of any system of easily

readable and comparable degrees as well as Europe's attractiveness and

competitiveness in the world. Its importance is widely recognized and indeed

emphasized by the all majority of European countries in order for the creation of

recognition procedures, facilitated mobility, and increased confidence and to

avoid the lowering of standards. Its development is seen as a necessary

complement for the increased curricular autonomy of universities and educational

system.

Of course, there is much variation among the countries, given the

differences in history, culture etc. But one thing is sure: the state control model

does not function well in Western Europe, because it starts from a perspective of

an all powerful government, which does not apply in our present-day,

complicated societies any more. The government cannot dictate the behavior of

universities in mass higher education systems. (Scheele, 2000, 462), in this way

European education converge from US educational systems which make the

control of their quality not easy task for the governments.

----------------------------
(1) The Bologna Declaration; is a pledge by 29 countries to reform the structures of their higher education
systems in a convergent way.
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In EU countries, Universities are interested in particular in self

improvement, while the government typically is interested in accountability of the

system, thus providing evidence for taxpayer value for money. All over Europe

internal quality assurance systems have been developed, some of them based

on Total Quality management models (TQM) such as the European Foundation

Quality Management model. These systems aim to fulfill the quality improvement

goal. (Scheele, 2000, 463)

Accordingly, the question is how both the improvement function and the

accountability function can be fulfilled. In the United States, Researches refer to

experiences that after a decade of systematic assessment state and federal

decision makers tended to be disappointed about even the most extensive

campus assessment initiatives. This disappointment apparently was a

consequence of the universities’ and departments’ failure to account convincingly

to decision-makers. Inside the institutions and especially at the program level,

however, the situation was different. Institutions and study program have

especially reported student learning and teaching related improvements. In other

words: the improvement function has been fulfilled, but not the accountability

function. In Europe, research rare too. However, reports in EU also and others

more or less confirm the conclusions researches are drew for the USA (Scheele,

2000, 464).

On the other hands, Quality evaluation is only an internal responsibility of

higher education institutions in some countries where no national agency exists,

e.g. in Austria, Switzerland, the French community of Belgium, Germany and

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Slovenia. In many countries there is an obligation for universities to have their

own quality evaluation system and a body at national level responsible for the

organization and stimulation of this Process, e.g. in Portugal, Spain, Germany

and Iceland (ESIB, 2002, 29).

However the majority of countries have a quality assurance agency also

carrying out external evaluation functions. Some operate as single national

agencies in unitary or integrated systems (e.g. in the UK, Norway, Sweden and

Romania) or in binary systems (e.g. Denmark and Estonia). Other countries have

an agency for each sub-sector of a binary system, e.g. Poland and Ireland. In

countries with decentralized or federal structures in higher education some

specific features exist; in Spain, some communities like Andalucía and Catalonia

have their own quality assurance system and agency that follows the same

principles as the national level. In Germany the Federal Ministry is funding a

special project operated by the Rectors' Conference for the sharing of information

and experience concerning quality evaluation between the federal states. In the

UK there are two agencies, one for Scotland and one for the rest of the country.

A few new quality assurance agencies were set up or are in preparation. In Italy

the 1999 reform laws required all universities to reorganize their self-evaluation

and replaced the former observatory" for university evaluation by a new,

independent National Committee for Quality Assurance which can set standards

and produce reports. The first phase of Spain's national plan for quality

evaluation expired at the end of 2000 and it is at this moment not yet clear which

changes will be introduced. In Ireland the new qualifications Act of 1999 created
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Conclusion

Customer satisfaction is a main concern of Total Quality Management in

industrial and service organizations but also in education, Students, their

families, employers and the government want assurance that the students will

get “good quality” education. The question is: what does “good quality education”

mean? In my paper I tired to find appropriate answer for this question. However

the concept of quality may have different aspects and it will not be easy to cover

all the dimensions of quality concept in particular for education. Also it was

necessary to mention some of measurements in which has used to ensure the

level of quality education in both area of the Europe and United state, but also

there are more indicators may have used there or in other places over the world

which I couldn’t mention all of them. The main question in this paper in which

had to find the answer was; whether using the same principles or measurements

of Total quality management in education will make sense in this respect, I found

that in united state almost education are not free of charge, even public institutes

so all the researchers have different expectation when they use these

measurements, because the main goal here is maximizing the resource of

foundation or profits and make the quality reach the customers satisfaction level

to attract more customers or students for their institutes, while European

education system depends mainly on public confidence, which make the

foundation of whole system not the first interest for them, thereby using the same

principles even if give us same results will not make much sense because the

main goal is deferment.

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Finally, this paper could be a small step to think about; how can similar

measurements used for different system of education have the right perspective.

However I know this paper was chose big topic in compare with its size. So I will

not be fully satisfied only with this much of knowledge but the time was limit.
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References

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Clifford V. Smith, Jr. Total Quality Management, Global J. of Engng. Educ., Vol.
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Education”, 2002. www.esib.org

Johnson, F. Craig, William A.J. Golomski, “Quality concepts in education” the

TQM Magazine, Volume 11. Number, 6. 1999. pp. 467-473, MCB University
Press. ISSN 0954-478X

Maguad, Ben A. ‘A TOTAL QUALITY APPROACH TO ADVENTIST DUCATION’

(Prepared for the 24th International Faith and Learning Seminar held at Andrews
University, Berrien Spring, Michigan, USA June 20-July 2, 1999)

Pereira, Zulema Lopes, et al. Improving Vocational Education and Training in

TQM
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the Netherlands, /2000

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management to the Educational Process, Int. J. Engng Ed. Vol. 14, No. 1, p.
24-29, 1998, Printed in Great Britain. # 1998 TEMPUS Publications

Wirt, John, et al, “The Condition of Education 2004”, U.S. Department of

Education Institute of Education Sciences, NCES, June 2004