MY SCHOOL, Dr .Nilesh Gopal das Joshi [best free ebook reader for pc txt] 📗

helpful in keeping their classes occupied by allotting work when a teacher happens to be on leave. Chapter: 18 TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT

TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT

The quality of education is determined by the kind of humans it produces. In education, where the shaping of person takes place, quality is a more holistic concept. Quality in education cannot be restricted to the supplier specification and even apparent customer satisfaction in terms of employability. There is the inner world of human life; quality in education includes processes that nurture the seeds of inner development.

The concept of Total Quality Management (TQM) was developed by an American, W. Edwards Deming, after World War II for improving the production quality of goods and services. The concept was not taken seriously by Americans until the Japanese, who adopted it in 1950 to resurrect their postwar business and industry, used it to dominate world markets by 1980. By then most U.S. manufacturers had finally accepted that the nineteenth century assembly line factory model was outdated for the modern global economic markets.

Total Quality Management can be defined as a continuous effort by the management as well as employees of a particular organization to ensure long term customer loyalty and customer satisfaction.

 The concept of TQM was introduced by Professor W. Edwards Deming in the 1950’s, can be applied to almost every organization up to a certain level. Total Quality Management is an integrative strategy to lead the entire components of organization to enhance the quality of its product and service. Tuttle (1994) traced four stages of the development of TQM:

Awareness and early experiments Blind following characterized by frenzied activity Negative skepticism arising out of failures of over-enthusiasm in Stage 2 Stage of maturity with continuing momentum but well-informed adoption of activities

Whereas many countries are in the fourth stage, we in India are just beginning to realize the potential and are at the early stage of experimentation with TQM in education.

Total Quality Management is comprised of three components:

Total: Involving the entire organization or made up of the whole Quality: Degree of excellence ofa product or service it provides Management:The system of managing with steps like plan, organize, control, lead, staff, provisioning and the art of handling, controlling or directing.

Power and Panda (1995) argued ‘that an institution of high quality, efficiently and effectively meets its stated purposes or missions developed taking into account clients’ stated as well as implied needs’.

Chaffe and Tierney (1988) identified nine areas of sensitivity that provide a broad context within which to consider application of TQM. They are:

Find internal contradictions Develop comparative awareness Clarify the identity of the institution Communicate Act on multiple, changing forms Treat every problem as if it has multiple solutions Treat every solution as a fleeting solution Look for consequences in unlikely places Be aware of any solution that hurts people or undermines strong values

Applying TQM in education is a continuous search for quality at personal, group, institutional and societal levels. There are significant potentialities that TQM can offer to education. First, TQM offers a justification and a technique for the continuous search for quality and excellence. Second, it develops willingness and hence a culture for change; related to that institutions learn to be more flexible and responsive. Third, TQM makes qualitative shifts in decision-making: first on the location of decision-making by active participants irrespective of their levels in the hierarchy of the organization rather than concentrating at the top of the hierarchy, and second on decision-making based on facts.

The concept of TQM is applicable to academics. Many educators believe that the Deming’s concept of TQM provides guiding principles for needed educational reform. In his article, “The Quality Revolution in Education,” John Jay Bonstingl outlines the TQM principles he believes are most salient to education reform. He calls them the “Four Pillars of Total Quality Management.”

Principle #1: Synergistic Relationships

According to this principle, an organization must focus, first and foremost, on its suppliers and customers. In a TQM organization, everyone is both a customer and supplier; this confusing concept emphasizes “the systematic nature of the work in which all are involved”. In other words, teamwork and collaboration are essential. Traditionally, education has been prone to individual and departmental isolation. However, according to Bonstingl, this outdated practice no longer serves us: “When I close the classroom door, those kids are mine!” is a notion too narrow to survive in a world in which teamwork and collaboration result in high-quality benefits for the greatest number of people. The very application of the first pillar of TQM to education emphasizes the synergistic relationship between the “suppliers” and “customers”. The concept of synergy suggests that performance and production is enhanced by pooling the talent and experience of individuals.

In a classroom, teacher-student teams are the equivalent of industry’s front-line workers. The product of their successful work together is the development of the student’s capabilities, interests, and character. In one sense, the student is the teacher’s customer, as the recipient of educational services provided for the student’s growth and improvement. Viewed in this way, the teacher and the school are suppliers of effective learning tools, environments, and systems to the student, who is the school’s primary customer. The school is responsible for providing for the long-term educational welfare of students by teaching them how to learn and communicate in high-quality ways, how to access quality in their own work and in that of others, and how to invest in their own lifelong and life-wide learning processes by maximizing opportunities for growth in every aspect of daily life. In another sense, the student is also a worker, whose product is essentially his or her own continuous improvement and personal growth.

Principle #2: Continuous Improvement and Self Evaluation

The second pillar of TQM applied to education is the total dedication to continuous improvement, personally and collectively. Within a Total Quality school setting, administrators work collaboratively with their customers: teachers. Gone are the vestiges of “Scientific management” … whose watchwords were compliance, control and command. The foundations for this system were fear, intimidation, and an adversarial approach to problem-solving. Today it is in our best interest to encourage everyone’s potential by dedicating ourselves to the continual improvement of our own abilities and those of the people with whom we work and live. Total Quality is, essentially, a win-win approach which works to everyone’s ultimate advantage.

According to Deming, no human being should ever evaluate another human being. Therefore, TQM emphasizes self-evaluation as part of a continuous improvement process. In addition, this principle also laminates to the focusing on students’ strengths, individual learning styles, and different types of intelligences.

Principle #3: A System of Ongoing Process

The third pillar of TQM as applied in academics is the recognition of the organization as a system and the work done within the organization must be seen as an ongoing process. The primary implication of this principle is that individual students and teachers are less to blame for failure than the system in which they work. Quality speaks to working on the system, which must be examined to identify and eliminate the flawed processes that allow its participants to fail. Since systems are made up of processes, the improvements made in the quality of those processes largely determine the quality of the resulting product. In the new paradigm of learning, continual improvement of learning processes based on learning outcomes replaces the outdated “teach and test” mode.

Principle #4: Leadership

The fourth TQM principle applied to education is that the success of TQM is the responsibility of top management. The school teachers must establish the context in which students can best achieve their potential through the continuous improvement that results from teachers and students working together. Teachers who emphasize content area literacy and principle-centered teaching provide the leadership, framework, and tools necessary for continuous improvement in the learning process.

According to the practical evidences, the TQM principles help the schools in following clauses:

(a) Redefine the role, purpose and responsibilities of schools.
(b) Improve schools as a “way of life.”
(c) Plan comprehensive leadership training for educators at all levels.
(d) Create staff development that addresses the attitudes and beliefs of school staff.
(e) Use research and practice-based information to guide both policy and practice.
(f) Design comprehensive child-development initiatives that cut across a variety of agencies and institutions.

In order to achieve the above as opportunities to the academic scenario, in addition to patience, participatory management among well-trained and educated partners is crucial to the success of TQM in education; everyone involved must understand and believe in principles. Some personnel who are committed to the principles can facilitate success with TQM. Their vision and skills in leadership, management, interpersonal communication, problem solving and creative cooperation are important qualities for successful implementation of TQM.

Indicators of Quality in Education

The system of indicators of quality in education, as well as the quality criteria associated with the indicators, helps schools to point out the important areas of their own activities, their own advantages and disadvantages and development opportunities. The indicators are grouped into 7 areas with specific topics: The first is:

Curriculum Structure of the curriculum (program/goals, tasks, focus on development of functional tasks, focus on student’s activities. Integration of programs within and between areas) Courses and programs Key competencies that students develop in the given school Achievements (evaluated by external, independent agencies) Achievement quality compared with set goals Learning and teaching – teacher’s work Student’s work and experience Meeting the needs of the students Monitoring and evaluating the work of students and teachers Students’ support Student’s personal, social and spiritual growth Progress and achievement monitoring Support in all aspects of learning, progress, student’s and teacher’s personal development School ethos School policy School atmosphere and relations Specific goals of each individual school Orientation towards student’s, teacher’s and parent’s satisfaction Resources School resources Teachers, professional associates, the principal; their education, teacher’s teamwork, co-operation; being open to innovation Material resources and premises Efficient human and material resources Management, leadership and quality assurance Approaches to leadership and management

 

TQM is a systematic program that indicates everyone and everything in the organization is involved in the enterprise of continuous improvement. Frazier (1997) stated quality management provides a connection between outcomes and the process by which outcomes are achieved. If the cause of failures in education is a problem in design, quality management may be regarded as an ideal systemic process for managing change in public education. TQM is used to describe two slightly different but related notions. The first is a philosophy of continuous improvement. The second related meaning uses TQM to describe the tools and techniques. TQM is both a mind-set and a set of practical activities- an attitude of mind as well as a method of promoting continuous improvement.

The hierarchy of quality concepts

As an approach, TQM represents a permanent shift in an institution’s focus away from short-term expediency to the long-term quality improvement. Herman and Herman (1994) stated three levels of application of quality management in education.

 

The first level is to the management process of a school, including strategic planning, recruiting and staff development, deploying resources, and alignment of what is taught, how it is taught, and how it is assessed. The next level is teaching quality to students. Students are recognized as both customer and workers in the educational system. Administrators need to involve students in their own education by training them to evaluate the learning process and accept responsibility for their learning. 

 

Two things are required for staff to produce quality.

First, staff needs a suitable environment in which to work. The environment that surrounds staff has a profound effect on their ability to do