H.E. Mr. Cassam Uteem, President of Mauritius honoured Mr. Jagdish Gandhi, the founder, City Montessory School, Lucknow, India, with the Quality Pioneer’s Award at Port Luis in Mauritius, in recognition of Mr. Gandhi’s pioneering contribution in introducing the concept and practice of Quality Circles (QC) in education. Incidentally, the Ministry of Education has made SQC’s compulsory in all government-aided schools in Mauritius.

Introduction:

Since Independence, the education, particularly the higher education in India has undergone a unique transformation from elitist to egalitarian group. There has been the expansion of higher education facilities in India since independence. We can see the expansion of higher education with increasing speed day by day in the context of globalization, liberalization and privatization. But a big question in front of us is whether the quality is ensured or not. It is saddening to note that 128 universities who got themselves accredited by the NAAC only 32 per cent could get ‘A’ or above level of rating while another 52 per cent of them could manage with ‘B’ or above grade. The remaining 16 per cent fall in grade ‘C’ or above. NAAC assessment further indicates that 68% of colleges are rated as ‘B’ while another 23% colleges is rated as ‘C’ grade; and only the remaining 9% are ‘A’ grade. Thus the quality assurance in higher education is the need of the hour.

 

Internal Quality Assurance system:

Quality is defined as

‘the fitness to use and conformance to requirement’ (Juran, 1984)

‘A predictable degree of uniformity and dependability at low cost and suited to the market’ (Deming, 1986)

‘The totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs’ (American Society for Quality Control, 1990)

‘A perception arising as a consequence of how well a company meets all explicit and implicit promises made to a stakeholder.’ (Feigenbaum, 1995)

‘A function of competencies in terms of knowledge, skills and attitudes, capacity and competition vis­-a-vis needs.’ (Goel and Biswal, 1996)

‘product or service possesses quality if it helps somebody and enjoys a good and sustainable market’ (Deming, 1997)

‘Resultant from the system that produced it, and is an attribute of that system as much as of the product itself— of its processes, its people and the way they work together.’ (Holt, 1998)

‘Efficiency in meeting the set goals, relevance to human and environmental needs and conditions and "something more" in relation to the pursuit of excellence and human betterment..’ (Rajput and Walia, 1997)

Thus, Quality is skill, excellence, perfection, standard, competence for work and value for money. It is further defined as combination of competence with virtue, excellence in performance and capability of delivering goods.

An Internal Quality Assurance system is a system under which students, staff and management satisfy themselves that control mechanisms are working to maintain and enhance the quality. In the specific context of higher education institutions, IQA is the totality of systems, resources and information devoted to setting up, maintaining and improving the quality and standards of teaching, scholarship (student learning experience), research, and service to community.

Quality Assurance Processes:

The processes may have the following elements:

• Quality assurance of student assessments
• Quality assurance of staff
• Quality assurance of facilities
• Quality assurance of student support
• Specific Instruments for Quality Assurance

The following special instruments may be used periodically and mostly combined with external assessment.

• SWOT analyses
• Inter-collegial audits
• Information system
• Quality handbook

The AUN-QA has formulated criteria for IQA.

These requirements are in line with the requirements formulated by the European Association for Quality Assurance (ENQA). A institution must have:

• a clear policy for IQA and clear procedures for it;
• an adequate system for the approval, monitoring and periodic review of programmes and awards;
• an adequate system for the assessment of students
• an adequate system for the quality assurance of teachers
• an adequate system for the quality assurance of learning resources and student support;
• an adequate information system;

Quality Assurance in Indian Context:

The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), is an apex body for quality assurance of institutions of higher learning in India, has accredited 140 Universities and 3492 colleges in the country. To keep this type of momentum in the Indian context the NAAC has given guidelines to all the accredited institutions to establish an internal quality assurance cell (IQAC) to ensure qualitative growth of the institution. The composition of the cell has been clearly defined so as to representative of all the constituents of the institution. Quality Circle Forum of India (QCFI) was founded in April 1982 as a non political and non-profit organization with Headquarters at Hyderabad to promote Quality Circle concept in India by creating awareness and imparting skills in implementing Quality Circles in the organizations. QCFI has 20 Chapters spread over the country in the Northern, Eastern, Western and Southern Zones catering to the needs of Quality Circle promotion and training of people in their respective areas.

Quality Circle - Background:

The concept of Quality Circles (QCs) is essentially Japanese. When Japan lost the Second World War, its economy suffered a major setback. In order to revive a shattered economy, Japan started to imitate the manufacture of several western goods. The strategy, however, did not work because the quality of most of these goods was poor. Despite price advantage, Japan found it difficult to face and survive global competition. It was then felt that a sustained effort to employ Statistical Quality Control (SQC) techniques to manufacturing operations would be the only way to revive the economy of Japan.

QCs in Japan were formalized in 1960 by K. Ishikawa. He succeeded in convincing the management about the potential of significant contribution from the large workforce to quality, productivity and several work-related issues. In reputed Japanese Companies, there is hardly a worker who is not a member of one Quality Circle (QC) or the other. Juran had sown the seed of QCs in Japan. It was Juran who, for the first time, propagated the broad role of quality function which traditionally was confined to the preparation of inspection reports on the quality of raw materials, semi-finished and finished goods. Juran’s definition of quality was concerned with the quality of performance of an organization where every employee, irrespective of his status or nature of work, has the potential to contribute to the overall quality function. The concept of QCs is based on the management’s faith in the capabilities of employees. A QC is only a forum to operationalize this faith.

In mid-sixties, the West became aware of the success of QCs in Japan. Several European and American Companies started forming these circles with fairly encouraging results in the areas of quality control, cost reduction, productivity, safety, housekeeping, etc.

The International Association of Quality Circles (IAQC) was formed in the U.S.A. in late 1977. Apart from training its members and propagating QC concepts, IAQC also acts as an international organization for the dissemination of global information concerning QCs.

Quality Circles in Education:

Education system does not function in vacuum but is a part of the larger social system. Policy changes like liberalization and privatization have their impact on education system. And then, with the globalization of the economy, can education be far behind?. 'The transition to 'one world' is a painful process, for the vital question is who gets integrated into whom. Obviously, the weaker gets subsumed into the stronger....', (Mukhopadhyay, 1997) Hence, there is a crucial need for introspection. With the foreign universities opening more and more centers in India coupled with aggressive marketing strategies, Indian education can only retain its identity and integrity if it can provide a world-class quality of education.

Quality Circle is an integrated system constituting small groups of people from same or similar work areas, who voluntarily offer to meet in order to identify, analyze and solve problems, which may lead to improvement in their total performance and enrichment of their work life. Another source defines as “a Quality Circle is composed of a small group of employees who genuinely care about others, preferably doing similar work, meeting voluntarily with a leader on a regular basis, to identify problems, analyze the causes, recommend their solutions to management and wherever possible, implement solutions.”

Quality circles in industry have been known to increase productivity, improve quality, boost employee morale, and serve as a human resource development tool; these same benefits may be accrued in education. In fact, quality circles in community colleges have been used to solve problems in administrative developments (Ladwig, 1983; Moretz, 1983), and in student support services (Ladwig, 1983; Cohen, 1983). Examples of quality circle applications at the community college are described in this article in the later part.

The Quality Circle organization has a four-tier structure, consisting of

a) Members

b) Leaders

c) Facilitators

d) Steering committee

Each circle has a leader preferably from amongst its members, a senior staff or from the management. Extensive training is provided to circle leaders so as to make them effective in initiating, guiding and controlling the circle activities. They must be familiar with their responsibilities and should know how to identify problems, analyze them and find solutions.

Facilitators are from a senior level in the hierarchy who liaise and co-ordinate the work of different circles under their control. Usually, three to four circles are allotted to each facilitator. They act as guides and catalysts for the circles and they stimulate the members to work together.

The steering committee is the apex body, comprising of departmental heads headed by the management representative. This committee overviews the work of all the circles and acts as a focal point for their planning and operation. The steering committee meets periodically to study the reports received from different circles or from their facilitators and the latter keep in touch with the members of the committee.

Quality in education can be ensured through the technique “Quality Circle” which has been successfully implemented in manufacturing industries. In educational institutions, the quality circles on various areas can be formed, so as to enrich the Indian Higher Education to International standard.

Quality Assurance Department:

There may be a separate department such as Quality Assurance Department or Quality Management Department formed for coordinating the various circles, selecting leaders, convening circle meetings, arranging training for members and obtaining other inputs from outside to prepare circles for solving problems, and arranging presentations of reports for the approval and implementation of management.

The thrust areas:

The various key issues on which the circles may be formed as far as any educational institution is concerned are:

a) Teaching & Learning in small groups

b) Infrastructure maintenance and its optimum use

c) Use of ICT

d) Faculty development

e) Course Curricula review

f) Students academic Excellency - Subject knowledge, General knowledge and soft skills

g) Students co-curricular activities

h) Students extra curricular activities

i) Students Assessment

j) Placements and Employability

k) Out reach and Extension Programs

l) CSR activities (Community and Social Responsibilities)

m) Counseling and Grievance handling

n) Doctoral and Post Doctoral Research and Publication

o) Faculty members Consultancy

Techniques for Problem Solving in Quality Circles:
The following techniques are commonly used by members of quality circles during their meetings for problem solving sessions. The member should be adequately trained on the use of these techniques when the circle activities are started.

i) Data or information collection

ii) Brain storming

iii) Cause and effect analysis

iv) Pareto diagrams

v) Control charts

vi) Flow diagram and process flow chart.

Table 1. Characteristics of a Quality Institution and an Ordinary Institution

Quality Institution

Ordinary Institution

• Customer centered • Focused on preventing problems • Invest in people • Treat complaints as an opportunity to learn • Have well defined quality characteristics for all areas of the organization • Senior management process involves everybody • Have collective performances and responsibility • Concurrent performance appraisal • Flexible planning • Have egalitarian culture • Plans are long term • Quality is seen as a part of the culture

• Centered on internal needs • Focused on detecting problems • No systematic approach to staff development • Treat complaints as nuisance is vague about standard of quality • Have no quality plan • Only the management team is involved • Have individual responsibility • Retrospective performance appraisal • Rigid planning • Have hierarchical culture • Plans are short term • Quality is seen as a troublesome initiative