(A review paper of Total Quality Management application at Ardhi University)
Improving the quality of education may
give the best solution to many Tanzanian Social, Economical and political
problems in the end. Tanzania of today the question is not more of the
quantity of educated people (Tanzanians) but rather the people
with quality education to productively guide the country through
the expected results of the growth and development. Actually, being a Tanzanian today means unethical, sluggish, extravagant, treacherous and the like (MBONGO MAN). It is not
uncommon for a Tanzanian to be late in the meeting and be happy,or likewise to
100% give self interest priority over the nation interest in the purely
public undertakings. That is why even the key organ like Parliament is sometimes
street joked to be like a movie or comedy episode. All of these gives the signs
that our education system may not be serving Tanzanian or doing it at minimal level.
We
are not too old to learn.
INTRODUCTION
AND
BACKGROUND
This paper intends primarily to contribute to the search of the best
route for Tanzanian prosperity. In doing so, the paper tries to review the
dissertation report titled; Total Quality Management application at
Ardhi University as submitted by Juma Ahmed Mpangule in Partial Fulfilment of
the requirements of Masters of Science in Construction Economics and Management
(M.Sc. CEM) of Ardhi University. The aim is to illustrate the need for
quality education in the growth and development of the Tanzania. It is in the
view of the author that improving the quality of education may give the best
solution to many Tanzanian Social, Economical and political problems in the
end. That is a developing country like Tanzania needs attention to peoples Mental
Power Quality if the country real wants to achieve the 2025 goals of becoming
middle income country. To him now the question is not more of the quantity
of educated people (Tanzanians) but rather the people with quality education to productively
guide the country through the expected results of the growth and
development.
According to (Mpangule, 2009), education is the heart of mental excellence necessary for growth
and development from family to national level. That is why Tanzania, on her
long-term development strategy of achieving sustainable human development and
turning into a middle-income country by the year 2025, has significantly been prioritising Ministry of Education budgets (Mkulo, 2008). Like wise, Minister of Finance, (2011)
gave out that availability and quality of human capital is one of the important
binding constraint for growth and economic development and so the focus must be
to to improve the quality of education in all levels through among others; creating conducive environment
for teaching and learning. Also matching the
facilities to increasing enrollment of the students (Tanzania Commission for Universities (TCU), 2007), which is not observed in many cases.
Actually
it is not uncommon for a Tanzanian to be late in the meeting and take it as who
we are or likewise to a professional or politician to 100% give self interest
priority over the nation interest in the purely public undertakings.
That is the stories of today in the media and probably that is why even the key
organ of development like Parliament is curently street joked to be a movie or
comedian episode. All of these gives the signs that our education system may
not be serving Tanzanian or doing it at minimal level. We are not too old to learn.
BODY OF THE PAPER
According to The Education Act of 2002(2)(1) of Tanzania,
“Education
means the instruction or training of people of all ages in various fields of
learning designed to contribute to the spiritual,moral,mental and physical
development of the community and the attainment of the wider national goals”
and education should also include moral values and overall care of the society
(Manneke, 1998). Of all levels Higher
Learning Instutions provide fertile grounds for
cross-pollination of representatives of all disciplines into a single place (World Bank,
2000). Basically, in Consise
Oxford English Dictionary, (2001) and from (Materu,2007), Higher
Education Institutions (HEIs) are tertiary institutions whose legal
mandates allow them to award degrees. World
Bank, (2000), stressed that developing countries can hardly benefit from the
global knowledgebased economy.
Quantitative effort being made, need the help of qualitative effort and in
relevance to local conditions. Actually,
University Education must be excellently fit for the society and
impart sense of community commitment and patriotism,otherwise it is
worthless and dangerous to the country’s development. On top (Mosha,2007)
stressed that quality education is also the surviving pillar for the university
itself at the international level. Based on these facts, the need to address the quality management in
construction education cannot be over emphasised.
It is
clearly shown that in Tanzania Universities accompanied with ever-increasing
knowledgeable stakeholders, who are demanding globally competitive education
and services necessitates the change from formerly Quality Assurance (QA),
Quality Control (QC) and Assessment
practices to TQM that helped United States and other countries. Except that TQM
philosophy requires a very careful step when defined not only on the
educational field but also in the different educational environment. This
made the point of interest for the study at ARU. Mathematically, TQM is the
intersection of management skills, quality management systems and peoples’
emotion from customers’ perception of product and services to suppliers. It
integrates them through inducing quality culture in the organization-working
settings. By definition, 1SO 8402(1994) gives that TQM is a management approach
for an organization, centred on quality ,based on the participation of all its
members and aiming at long-term success through customer satisfaction and
benefits to all members of the organization and society. Moreover, in defining TQM
it is necessary to include phrases like total approach to quality ( the whole
system as integrated unit) not with departments or parts of the organization.
Second, TQM is an ongoing process.That is however good a system is, still it
can always be improved further. Finally the goal of TQM is a competitively customer
satisfaction. The customer here refers to internal and external of the
organization.
Stepping from above, means relying on TQM does not mean ignoring the
former system but rather strengthening them. Whereas traditional educational
leadership (and its constituents) rely primarily upon norm-based statistical
opinion for decision making and student assessment (e.g., standardized
achievement tests and tests graded on the curve), Total Quality Management
relies upon analysis of the system and the proper use of statistical reasoning.
These ensure that statistical results are accurately interpreted and
understood. Furthermore, by understanding the capability of the system and
redesigning and improving the processes within the system, student achievement
and/or institutional accomplishments will be enhanced as a result of these
improved processes. (Cole, 2006).
In TQM, students
are taken as raw materials where attention should be made to their background
,in adding values process the students mind are prepared to be able to
concentrate on past, present and certainly deal with future, as product a
student must have a potential to contribute to an organization or society immediately upon
graduation and as the customer are students themselves, their family, employers
and society at large. So these customers must competitively be satisfied with
the product. Any system need performance measure, under TQM this is viewed from
both, directly were responsible participants, authorities and regulatory bodies
of the education system are involved and indirectly were the representatives of
the society (main customer) like media of communication are involved through
opinions and comments towards the outputs of the education outputs or
institution. (See the Fig 1)
The global market is currently dictating the definition of quality,
mostly is on how the customer perceive. People need what they are satisfied
with from all dimension rather than purposes. A car without a radio can mean
nothing to a double expensive car with a television. Like wise a thief First Class graduate means nothing to
decent Pass holder student, at least to the family! Or otherwise, the society
expects the products of all levels of education to competitively serve them
especially with the resources they have, because that is what quality education
all about. If they are to employ resources from outside, to ensure that you are
capable of managing your environment advantageously!
As aready noted,
this paper comes from the dissertation for masters degree, so the questiions of
research may be of little significance rather the contectual value. The Mixed
approach used to achieve the quantitave and qualitatave values while
minimizaing the weaknesses of both. It was assumed that the Structural Functionalism Theory and
Multiplier-Accelerator Principle can be rlated to the study theoretically. That
is the society is like an organism, made up of a system of parts working
together for the overall effectiveness and efficiency of the society. So, improving the quality
of the universities will have a positive effect to the quality of the
universities, its stakeholders and productivity of the country. Conceptually, the study assumed that the Quality Culture will follow suite the Keyne’s, (1939),
incomes re-spending effect (multiplier effect) that increases
the incomes many times, if the large proportion of income is consumed and , the
principle
of acceleration by
Kahn, (1931) proposes
that increased final demand creates derived demand, which results in induced
investment. This suggests that the injected quality culture at one, few
universities or the right segment of the economy supposedly ARU will set up the
multiplier and accelerator principle to spread the quality culture to the
other universities or the whole country in the long run. Nevertheless, as one
scholar stated, (Westerhoff, 2006), this
trend can be reversed by negative attitudes, so if our first injection is to deprive
the quality culture, then we should expect worse situation than the one
currently noted.
The limitations of
the study was that of being within the
full time universities with the exclusion of longdistance and part time
programmes, and the concentration was only at Ardhi University specifically to
the learning and teaching environment.Also the analysis of the study
concentrated on the principles of TQM philosophy as applied in a university
settings. The purposeful sampling procedures and the fact that administration
and other supporting activities were only partially considered unquestionably
limit the generalisation of findings. Because, under TQM a supporting activity
may have equal quality consequences to the core activities. Furthermore,the
elements of TQM used in this study were the main, while in essence all elements
in an organisation are related.Never the less the study
did not touch the prevailing issue of students against the (HELSB) Loan Board,
where the financial crisis may as well affect the commitment of the students to
the studies.
Despite the above limitations little found can
not be ignored. Presence of TQM drivers’ practices found to be low (27%).This is
the signs of not having the Quality Culture. That is the low customer focus
practices suggests that the customers are not well involved, especially the
indirect stakeholders, good example can be the media. The low process focus
with regard to inputs in the view of TQM may still be inefficient, unless what
substituted Matriculation exams worked best. Like wise TQM needs recognized
effort of quality culture and commitment, of which too found to be very low. However the performance of the university
was found to be satisfactory in the market!
The little knowledge on TQM and low top
management commitment were the biggest challenges for TQM application at ARU
and TQM incorporation into the Curriculum Development and Reviews was still
low. The opportunity to enhance TQM application at ARU needed a good
understanding of the essence of Continuous Quality Improvement effect to the
local and global market and injection of the quality culture commitment among
staffs and students. It was suggested that through exposing the
students to the markets, the new thinking of increasing their competence will
overweigh the “passing exams” focus noted. The enforcement of an internal
monitoring mechanism of the teaching staffs’ commitment was needed to create
the quality
culture mentality of self-assessment and “customer satisfaction”
against that of “satisfying its participatory organs”.
CONCLUSION
Total Quality Management (TQM) is a
“quality culture” base for an excellent serving of all the customers and
suppliers of an organization. To reach a cutting edge possible in the
global market, the University need TQM. Doing well in the current local market,
does not necessary mean competence, it may as well mean taking advantage of the
unknowledgeable customers who are geometrically disappearing. The
opportunity to enhance TQM application need good understanding of the essence of
Continuous Quality Improvement effect to the local and global market and
injection of the quality culture commitment among staffs and students. It
involves giving students the new thinking of increasing their competence to
overweigh the “passing exams” focus currently witnessed. This requires
exposure to the market and stakeholders assessment. The enforcement of an
internal monitoring mechanism of the teaching staffs’ commitment is needed to
create the quality culture mentality of self-assessment and “customer
satisfaction” against that of “satisfying its participatory organs”.
TQM should be taught in all departments in
universities because it is a management concept useable to all professionals. This will help to improve understanding and facilitate the
implementation of TQM. Embarking on TQM does not imply ignoring Internal Quality
Assurance, as it may be understood but it is rather making IQA more embedded in
the mind of the administrators, teaching staffs, students, supporting staffs
and stakeholders of Universities. Otherwise, IQA will end at giving
some organs
the responsibility of quality, which TQM takes is the weakness in most
of the quality approach.
“Relying on Albert Einstein’s theory of force of
gravity does not mean Aristotle did nothing”
This means the general results of this
study was that ARU need quality culture (TQM) at ARU and specifically to its
settings for persistent success of ARU, the Construction Industry and Tanzania. So
it is not about how this came but it is more of whether we can get anything
worth from it. It is as well hoped that President’s
Office, Planning and Commission (POPC) can see this through as carring the
research. We
reserved gold, gas and the like for the future of Tanzania, but did we nourish
the mental power to ensure that it is Tanzania that benefit from those resources?
This is calling upon Professionals, Academicians, Politicians and all other
Citizens, to comment on whether the kind of knowledge we have is real serving
and satisfying our internal and external customers? And to suggest the solution
too for improvement.
 |
| An explanation of the TQM model of Quality Education adopted in this Work! |
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