A Quality Framework for Higher Education

A Quality Framework for Higher Education

Quality is a complex concept. Its meaning varies with different people and organizations. Its definitions range from the conventional to the more strategic. From the conventional perspective, a quality item is one that “wears well, is well constructed, and will last a long time”. Traditional management views quality as synonymous with goodness, elegance, excellence, or “I know quality when I see it”. However, for managers doing business in a very competitive global marketplace, the strategic definition, which is “meeting the needs of customers,” makes more sense. Strategically, quality has been denied as follows:

•  Performance to the standard expected by the customer – Fred Smith, CEO of Federal Express.
• Meeting the customer’s needs the irst time and every time – General Services Administration.
•  Providing our customers with products and services that consistently meet their needs and expectations – Boeing.
• Doing the right thing right the irst time, always striving for improvement, and always satisfying the customer – U.S. Department of Defense.

David Garvin, in his book Managing for Quality, identifies principal approaches to deining quality. They are transcendent, product-based, user-based, manufacturing-based, and value based. he transcendent approach equates quality with “innate excellence,” a property which is considered absolute and universally recognizable. According to this view quality cannot be deined but “you know it when you see it”. It is understood only ater exposure to a series of objects that exhibit its characteristics.

The product-based approach views quality as the presence or absence of a particular desired attribute. He greater the amount of a desired attribute possessed by a product or service, the better its quality. He manufacturing-based approach, on the other hand, deines quality as conformance to a set of requirements or specifications and “making it right the irst time.” Any deviation from these requirements or specifications implies lack of quality.

According to the user-based approach, quality “lies in the eyes of the beholder”. The quality of a product or service depends on its ability to satisfy the preferences of individual consumers. He user based definition is one that is highly subjective. His value-based approach, on the other hand, deines quality in terms of cost and price. A quality product or service is one that “performs or conforms” at an acceptable cost or price. here is no single deinition of quality that is accepted universally.

Here are as many deinitions of quality as there are books and authors. Nevertheless, its various strategic deinitions share the same common elements

• Quality involves meeting or exceeding customer expectations.
•  Quality applies to products, services, people, processes, and environments.
• Quality is an ever-changing state – what is considered quality today may not be good enough to be considered quality tomorrow.

Quality, based on the aforementioned common elements, may be deined as “a dynamic state associated with products, services, people, processes, and environments that meet or exceed current expectations”. This deinition asserts that quality changes with time and circumstances. It also stresses that “quality applies not just to products and services provided, but also to the people and processes that provide them and the environments in which they are provided”.