Enhancing Quality in Higher Education : The Need for a Holistic

Approach

Mr Vinaiyan Teeroovengadum

PhD Student

Faculty of Law and Management, University of Mauritius

ABSTRACT

From the time the world began to move towards a global village, terms like quality

assurance, total quality management and other related concepts have gained in importance.

Today in order to compete on an international level, organisations are under the compulsion

to adopt appropriate quality management models so as to ensure quality and hence their own

survival. Universities make no exception and in fact and indeed the need for assuring quality

in higher education is now a burning issue. However as opposed to other industries, in the

education sector the situation is quite unique. Mainly due to the fact, that education cannot

be limited to a product nor a service per se. Building on the current debate in the literature

on quality in education, this paper analyses the present need for a more holistic approach in

conceptualising and managing quality in higher education. Thus enabling not only the

provision of high quality services of international standard but also to make certain that the

core purpose of education itself which is the transformation of the student, is being catered

for. The study also proposes a conceptual framework which will be used as a basis for the

development of a Holistic Model for Quality in Education (HMQE).

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AKNOWLEDGEMENT

First of all I would express my deepest gratitude to my spiritual master and best friend His

Holiness Swami Paramananda for His constant love and guidance. My sincere gratitude to all

masters of the past also, like Jesus, Krishna, Mohammed, Buddha and Ramakrishna among

others. I would like to thank the whole existence, form and formless for constantly showering

its blessings upon me.

Thanks to everyone who contributed in one way or another to help me write this paper and

also to pursue my Mphil/PhD research including my supervisors Dr A.K Seebaluck and Prof.

T.J. Kamalanabhan. This paper is in fact written out of my thesis’ literature review.

Thanks also to the Tertiary Education Commission and the University of Mauritius for their

support in terms of financial, intellectual and any other form.

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1 INTRODUCTION Quality in Education is one of the burning issues on the agenda of most governments around

the world and it is as ever a major concern for the welfare of the present society (UNESCO,

2009). As a matter of fact, the quality of education that is being provided will simply impact

on the future of humanity. In this vein, it is therefore not surprising to witness a growing

interest in the education sector for the enhancement of the quality of education. However

when assessing the driving forces which have accounted for the present strong need for better

and better quality in the higher education sector, two major forces can be highlighted, one of

which is based much more on a business perspective and economic success rather than

education per say. This paper attempts to examine these and to investigate into the move

towards adopting a more holistic approach to enhancing quality in education. Indeed as

Ehlers (2009) observes we are moving into “a new era in quality management for higher

education”, one which is shifting from a mechanistic to a holistic view of quality in

education.

2 THE ROOT OF THE NEED FOR QUALITY IN EDUCATION 2.1 EXTERNAL PRESSURE AND FOCUS ON SERVICE QUALITY

During the last two decades as access to colleges and universities kept on increasing, the

focus progressively shifted from quantity to quality. Indeed given that equilibrium between

the demand and supply is being reached in the higher education sector, choice is no more a

luxury but a reality. Apart from the increase in the student population (Blackmore, 2009;

Finnie and Usher, 2005), other factors such as growing public expenditure (Ngware et al,

2006), strain on universities to act in response to the requirements of stakeholders (Abukari

and Corner, 2010) and the rise in competition (Nasser et al, 2008; Gallifa and Betallé, 2010)

in the education market are “among the main reasons causing the growing concern for the

quality assurance within the expanding global higher education system” (Milisiunate et al,

2009). This state of affairs constitute a major driving force behind the rising need for quality

in education, that is, substantial external pressure on higher education institutions for being

more accountable and meeting required level of standard.

This perspective for the need of quality in higher education can be considered to be a top-

down approach, whereby educational institutions are seen more as service providers and

respond there off to pressure for meeting customer requirements to gain market share (Yeo,

2008). Gibbs and Iacovidou (2004) criticise the fact this market-driven approach is

responsible for over emphasis on customer orientation. Indeed, this approach as observed by

Ferreira (2003) has led to the tendency for universities to adopt manufacturing-based quality

management models, a trend which has not really proved effective as argued by Ehlers

(2009). This is further discussed in section 4.

2.2 INHERENT NEED FOR QUALITY IN EDUCATION AND FOCUS ON INDIVIDUAL

TRANSFORMATION

Regardless of the above reasons for ensuring and improving quality in higher education, as

opposed to other, organisations in any manufacturing or service industry, it can be argued that

educational institutions do have an intrinsic moral duty to ensure proper delivery of education

per say. In fact Gibbs (2001) even contends that the alteration of education into a market

place have resulted into the failure of educational institution to live up to their implicit moral

responsibility to strive to allow students to experience their full potential. As a matter of

fact, good financial performance and customer satisfaction are only a means and cannot be

considered as an end in itself. Furthermore educational providers are not accountable solely

to government, nay even to society and all the stakeholders as pointed out by Rowley (1997)

but to humanity as a whole, whether present or future (Cheng et al, 2003). While it must be

conceded that universities cannot be expected to ensure the transformation of the student, the

focus should be on transformation (Srikanthan and Dalrymple, 2007) and therefore quality

initiatives should be geared towards the total development of the student.

3 MOVING BEYOND THE CONCEPT OF CUSTOMER SATISFACTION 3.1 CUSTOMER SATISFACTION AS THE CENTRAL DIMENSION OF QUALITY

The essence of the concept of quality developed during last century by the so-called quality

gurus such as Deming, Juran and Feigenbaum among others is largely based upon the

concept of customer satisfaction (Hardie and Walsh, 1994). In the introduction of a chapter

on the customer satisfaction dimension of Total Quality Management, the following can be

read: “The most important asset of any organisation is its customers. An organisation’s

success depends on how many customers it has.Customers that are satisfied will increase in

number...” (Besterfield et al, 2008).

Assuming that the students are the primary customers in the education sector as agreed upon

by various authors (Hwarng and Teo, 2001; Lagrosen, 2004) that would imply that the

success of the educational institution will depend upon the number of students enrolling for

its programmes and satisfying them would be the main organisational aim.

3.2 EDUCATION: BEYOND CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

It can be deduced from the above discussion, the concept of quality is strongly linked to the

element of customer satisfaction which can be considered as being a fundamental dimension.

However in education this approach is not fully applicable. Mainly due to the fact that, firstly

there is a difficulty in identifying who the customer of education really are, as Lomas (2007)

notes, the idea of customer in education is illusive. Secondly, education is not solely about

meeting customer requirements and satisfying them, but much more than that (Chua, 2004).

Law (2010) purports that, the consideration of students as customers may even go against

educational values. Indeed, higher education is about “transforming the person” and should

not be limited to the acquisition of skills (Milisiunate et al, 2009). Neither should it stop at

gaining new knowledge. “Education services are often intangible and difficult to measure,

since the outcome is reflected in the transformation of individuals in their knowledge, their

characteristics, and their behaviour” (Tsinidou et al, 2010). In this vein, students are seen

more as participant of the educational process than customers, a truth which certainly ought

not to be neglected.

4 THE NEED FOR A HOLISTIC APPROACH 4.1 CRITICISM ON ADOPTING INDUSTRIAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT MODELS

TO SCHOOLS

Quality Management models such as Total Quality Management, European Foundation for

Quality management (EFQM) excellence model and ISO 9000 among others all originate

from the manufacturing industry. Despite the fact that they have been successfully applied to

the service industry also after much struggle, in education the situation is still much

indecisive (Law, 2010). As Sahney (2006) argues these models when implemented in

universities have not yielded the expected results.

The applicability of Total Quality Management (TQM) in particular, one of the most popular

quality management models has been subject to much debate. As Svensson and Klefsjö

(2006), highlight that there is much criticism about the application of Total Quality

Management in the education sector, mainly about the use of business terminologies and

methodologies in schools. Indeed the adaptation of business and industrial concepts to higher

education is a matter under much discussion and as pointed out by Eagle and Brennan (2007),

the focus on standardisation and the machine-like approach which characterise TQM does not

fit smoothly to education.

As boldly stated by Srikanthan and Dalrymple (2002), applying Quality Management models

being used in industry to Higher Education have failed to some extent, while Becket and

Brookes (2008) further adds that dependence on industrial models of quality management

have yielded only “partial success” and there is a strong need for fine-tuning. The authors

further argue that the usage of industrial models has been unsuccessful with respect to

catering to the teaching and learning dimension of education (Beckets and Brookes, 2008).

Some authors (Dollery et al, 2006; Srikanthan and Dalrymple 2007), even advocate that

adopting industry based quality management models is actually having an inverse effect on

the quality of teaching and learning.

However as stressed upon by Kleijnen et al (2011), “negative effects” do result from laying

too much emphasis on control and accountability when applying quality management models

but much “positive effects” have also been generated. Therefore this lead to the conclusion

that quality management as applied in manufacturing and service organisations can yield

much positive outcomes but still there is a missing dimension to it. In this vein, Mizikaci

(2006) states that the managing quality in education should be done in a way dissimilar to

that in other service organisations.

4.2 THE NEED FOR A HOLISTIC APPROACH THROUGH THE INTEGRATION OF

THE SERVICE AND EDUCATIONAL DIMENSION

Recognising the specificities of the education sector, the authors Gitachari Srikanthan and

John Dalrymple came to the conclusion that educational institutions carry on “two distinct

type of processes” which are: services to the student on one hand and the purely educational

processes on the other hand (Srikanthan and Dalrymple, 2002).

Building on the work conducted by Srikanthan and Dalrymple (2002, 2003, 2005), Sultan and

Wong (2010, pp 126) states that “Quality management in higher education has two core

functions, service and education”. The present exigency to discriminate between these two

critical dimensions has given rise to another need, that of integrating the service and

educational aspects. Indeed as pointed out by Becket and Brookes (2008), instead of

neglecting the benefits of TQM and for that matter it could be added any existing quality

management models, another approach should be adopted one which emphasize on the

educational dimension without disregarding the “efficiency and effectiveness” of the service

dimension. This rationale previously espoused by Srikanthan and Dalrymple, led them to

develop a holistic model for quality management in education though a synthesis of the QM

literature and that of educationally oriented models. (Srikanthan and Dalrymple, 2007)

5 DEVELOPMENT OF A HOLISTIC MODEL FOR QUALITY IN

EDUCATION Based on the comprehensive model developed by Srikanthan and Dalrymple (2002, 2003,

2005, 2007), a conceptual framework has been devised as a basis for the development of a

model termed as a Holistic Model for Quality in Education (HMQE) as depicted below.

Figure ... : Holistic Model for Quality in Education (HMQE)

Figure 1: Holistic Model for Quality in Education (HMQE)

5.1 SET OF HYPOTHESES TO BE TESTED

So as to empirically test the model, a set of hypotheses have been developed as follows:

H1: There is a positive relationship between Attitude towards Education and Attitude towards

the Quality in Education

H2: There is a positive relationship between Attitude of towards Quality in Education and the

three core values (Commitment, Collaboration and Transformation Focus)

H3: There is a positive relationship between Commitment and level of Collaboration

H4: There is a positive relationship between level of Collaboration and perceived level of

Holistic Development of the Student

H5: There is a positive relationship between level of Collaboration and Service Quality

H6: There is a positive relationship between Transformation Focus and perceived level of

Holistic Development of Student

H7: There is a positive relationship between Transformation focus and Service Quality

H8: There is a positive relationship between Service Quality and Holistic Development of the

Student

Attitude towards

Education

Attitude towards

Quality in Education

Commitment

Collaboration

Transformation

Focus

Holistic Development of

the Student

Service Quality

Customer

Satisfaction

H9: There is a positive relationship between Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction

H10: There is a positive relationship between Holistic Development of the Student and

Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction

5.2 FUTURE WORK

This research paper is part of a doctorate research. It is intended to empirically test the above

model through the use the Structural Equation Modelling technique.

6 CONCLUSION From the light of the above discussion, it is clear that the debates on the subject of quality

enhancement in education points towards the need for a more holistic approach in

conceptualising and managing quality in education. It is worth noting that as highlighted

throughout this paper, it is of paramount importance to distinguish clearly between quality in

education as a “competitive tool” and quality in education as the very “raison d’être” of

higher education institution, that is, to ensure that students are being properly educated.

Well, put in simple language, we might say what is the use of being a first class university in

terms of offering high quality services and having outstanding financial performance. If the

students have not make at least some steps towards realising their full potential as human

beings at end of the educational process. It is certainly a major concern to which we are being

confronted today, with the over emphasis on institutional quality and “marketisation” of

higher education. The current world crisis show that we are already suffering from the

consequences of it.

The need for a more holistic approach to enhancing quality education seems therefore not a

mere alternative but a necessity. Both the academic literature and practical realities bear

testimony to it.

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