The
Problems and Factors That Are Related to the Success of Quality Management in
Education
1. Quality Management
Quality
is described as "the entirety of a product or service's features and
attributes that have an impact on its capacity to satisfy stated or implied
needs."
According
to Joseph Juran, quality is a standard, measurement or a degree that meets,
satisfies or exceeds the needs or expectations of the customer in the view of
it as fitness for purpose. It will be measured by the level of fulfillment of a
desired purpose, mission or goal by a program, institution or organization.
There are five ways of thinking about quality, rather than definitions, that have been proposed by Harvey and Green (1993). This typology provides a helpful framework for thinking about the subject and is regularly cited in the literature on higher education and by practitioners. Figure 1 shows Harvey and Green’s five ways of thinking about quality in higher education.
Therefore,
‘Quality’ can be defined in many different ways according to the different
contexts. It can be seen from different dimensions or perspectives. Quality can
be either objective or subjective, depending on the definition used. Quality in
higher education means the educational process is such that it ensures students
achieve their goals and thereby satisfies the needs of the society and help in
national development (Mishra,
2006).
Quality
in education is defined by different factors such as having adequate
infrastructure and tools in the classroom that generate an optimal environment
for the development of academic activities, having trained teachers with both
specific knowledge and pedagogical skills to ensure that all students receive
and assimilate the same information depending on their particular needs, and
providing students with techniques, strategies and skills that allow them to be
an active part of the construction of their knowledge (Gamboa-Suárez,
Avendaño-Castro, & Núñez, 2022).
Quality
education requires quality management. The word quality means conformance to
specification and fitness for purpose or use or use with zero defects. Quality
management in education should be focused on implementing innovations,
evaluating human talent and redesigning educational methodologies, according to
the American Association of Quality Management Organization.
Various
models are used to achieve efficient organizational management and one of those is quality management system. Quality
management requires a structure, procedures, processes, and other resources.
The success of education in terms of quality depends not only on all ministry
agents, from teachers to local and central government officials, but also on
the parents of the students - particularly through the establishment of special
management and/or regulatory mechanisms in the school, as well as their
participation in the financing of certain resources, and on civil society
stakeholders who can plan and mobilize resources to support schools.
Additionally,
it should be noted that the systemic dimension of quality arises from the
effective and efficient implementation of the key organizational and management
responsibilities of the educational system, including planning, human resource
management, curricula and syllabi, school management, financial resource
management, evaluations, and information systems. More specifically,
educational quality management can be described as a series of coordinated
actions between various levels of an educational system that are intended to
produce information and decisions in order to achieve the desired results in
accordance with a framework, with a crucial focus on equity.
Fundamentally,
the management of education of a country directly affects its economic and
developmental life. Because of this, developed countries pay more attention to
their education systems' management (Kaul, 2010). Educational management
relates to the activities and management of educational organizations (Lange,
1988). In accordance with this, a country's management of its educational
system has a significant impact on the development and overall success of the
country. In light of the aforementioned, effective management of the
educational system is crucial and has a significant impact on the quality of
the labor force and the nation as a whole, as well as the long-term expansion
of the national economy (Cho & McLean, 2004; McLean, 2006; Peters, 2009).
2.
Problems and factors that affect the success of Quality Management
Quality
management is not an easy management concept to apply to educational
institutions since academic cultures are frequently resistive to change and
hostile to efforts at improvement. Total quality management perspectives are
appropriate and ideal in industry, according to (Claude Ah-Teck & E. Starr,
2014), but the viability and value in education still need to be discussed.
Some educators also think that business-oriented mentality may not be
appropriate for service organizations like educational institutions (Sohel-Uz-Zaman
& Anjalin, 2016).
The
biggest obstacle to implementing quality management in education is the lack of
commitment on the part of individuals working in the system, particularly
senior management and instructors. The lack of management support prevents
process improvement, which in turn is hindered. According to (Brown, 1992), a lack of commitment from top management can negatively affect the
implementation of quality management efforts, and this can lead to the main
reason for the failure of quality management efforts. Bayraktar, Tatoglu and
Zaim (2008) and Kosgei (2014) also stated that some of the challenges in
implementing quality management in schools come from a lack of commitment by
management, some of the workforce, school organizational culture, poor
documentation, inadequate staff training, and ineffective communication.
Many
academics think that the quality of education is declining, and they're having
a lot of trouble with unhappy customers and low employee morale. Quality
Management is seen as a way to improve things, and it has turned into a kind of
managerialism because of the different ways of being applied to different kinds
of organizations in different parts of the world. However, there are some
problems with applying quality management techniques to education, which can be
expected to happen. Poor input, poor service delivery, a disregard for
performance and measurement standards, an unmotivated workforce, and a failure
to prioritize student skills can all contribute to the failure of quality
management in education (Gomes & Panchoo, 2017; King, 2013).
There are
also some
critical obstacles, such as ineffective leadership, obstacles to change,
contradictory policies, and inappropriate organizational structure in
implementing quality management in schools. The other reasons why institutions
that want to practice quality management often fail are that administrators are
not committed to the idea of quality, there are no effective communication
channels, it is hard to measure the results of an institution's work, there is
a bureaucratic decision-making circuit, and there is not much leadership
support.
Higher
education institutions have long been considered the source of high-quality
concepts, but have been slow to adopt quality management practices. There are a
number of reasons for this, including different stakeholder perspectives and
institutional quirks. Quality management in higher education is a challenging
endeavor, due in part to the many different factors at play.
According
to numerous researches about challenging problems of implementing quality
management in education, the common problems and obstacles are shown as follows
in a Figure 2.
3.
Quality Management Implementation
The
academic culture in educational organizations is resistant to change and often
opposed to any attempts at improvement, and as a result, quality management
becomes a challenging management strategy to implement.
Quality management and resources are necessary for a high-quality product. According to (Dhal, 2021), the following figure shows the stages that could be useful as a potential planning sequence to be used at any educational institution for quality management. The first step in this path is to create a vision and mission for quality that focuses meeting the needs of students, community involvement in quality improvement programs, and continual progress towards excellence in educational services and educational products. In order to make strategic corporation plans according to quality policies and measures, market analysis and SWOT analysis are to be conducted as the following steps. All those stages focusing on the quality value must be finally accompanied by evaluation process with the feedback from all who have involved throughout the strategic planning.
Figure
3: Diagram of Strategies of Quality Management
Dale
and Oakland (2000) claim that dedication and leadership, planning and
organizing, implementing and training quality management in education,
everyone's engagement, cooperation, evaluation and feedback, and working
together are the keys to adopting quality management. In general, the core
values presented by Bergman and Klefsjö (1994); Kennerfalk, (1995); Kanji,
Malek and Tambi (1999) are: focus on customers, the participation of all
parties, focus on the process, continuous improvement and decision based on
facts.
Focus
on customers: There are two groups of people who often
interact with schools: internal customers, who are students, employees
(teachers, staff) and/or organizers working within the school system, and
external customers, who are people who rely on the school system for services,
such as the community, government, and industry. Quality management believes
that it is important for organizations to always be listening to their
customers, in order to ensure that they are providing the best possible
service. If an organization's quality of service is poor, however, the customer
will be dissatisfied.
Focus
on the process: The relationship between customers and
internal and external suppliers is mediated by the process. The purpose of a
process is to provide a product that satisfies its customers and is supported
by an organization that has adequate human resources and the necessary tools
(Pall, 1987).
Participation of all parties: According to (Wilkinson, 1998), the
improvement of school quality is a shared duty in the field of education,
requiring the participation of all stakeholders, not only school
administrators. Every student's participation will boost their sense of
responsibility, creativity, cooperation, duties, trust, and self-control.
Continuous
Improvement: Quality management is now known as
"new managerialism." This means that schools are more committed to
achieving quality improvement and generating sustainable progress. Continuous
improvement encourages schools to keep working to improve their conditions,
meeting the expectations of all parties by regularly analyzing the school
situation and creating effective ways to improve things with the PDCA cycle by
Deming (1993).
Decisions
based on facts: Quality management encourages
organizations to collect and analyze data to make sure that decisions in
schools are based on factual information rather than arbitrary variables, in
order to create decisions or policies that are accurate and right on target
(Deming, 1993; Ishikawa, 1986).
4.
Conclusions
Education
is the one, which is essential to all the people in different parts of the
world. People want to make sure that the education they get or that they give
their children is of a high quality. This is especially important in a
competitive education sector where success of an academic institution depends
on the quality of education. Consequently, the quality and management of
education, having a significant impact on economic growth, is regarded as one
of the most important factors for all the countries, in order to maintain and
strengthen competitiveness in the world of globalization.
Quality
management is gaining popularity among educators, policy makers, scholars, and
researchers since it has been proven to be an applicable and effective
management philosophy for customer satisfaction, continuous improvement, and
organizational excellence. Quality Management in education will produce better
results in all aspects of the educational process because it is a good
management technique that has proven to produce excellent results in other
industrial and business organizations (Akhtar, 2000).
Quality
management can be a difficult process to implement, and there are several
problems that have been noted in different studies. To be successful with the
implementation of quality management, everyone in the institution must be
committed to quality, and this commitment must be continuous and shared. The
managing committee, principal, teachers, students, non-teaching staff, and
parents all need to be on board and work together to ensure quality is
maintained.
As a result, quality management can assist schools and colleges in improving their primary customers, students and employers since its emphasis on continuous improvement is a fundamental way of meeting the accountability requirements that are common in educational reform. Quality management system that focuses on continuous growth and improvement provides students and teachers with a more exciting and challenging learning environment than a "good enough" system can. Based on the participatory management philosophy, quality management encourages students, teachers and community stakeholders to perform excellent tasks. This is because a quality management is designed to always be searching for ways to improve, which makes it more effective and exciting for all the participants.
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