Total Quality Management (TQM) or Continuous Improvement System (CIS) in Education Sector and Its Implementation Framework towards Sustainable National Development

摘要

Sustainable national development (SND) is a kind of national development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability and efficacy of future generations to meet their own needs [@25,26,27 Vijayan Gurumurthy Iyer, World Engineers' Convention(WEC) 2004, Shanghai, China]. Total quality management (TQM) or Continuous Improvements System (CIS) can be defined as set of systematic activities carried by an institution to efficiently achieve institutional objectives that satisfies beneficiaries at the appropriate time and price. TQM or CIS can be a comprehensive and structured approach to an educational management that seeks to improve the educational services through refinements in response to continuous feedback. Educational quality is defined as the totality of features and characteristics of services that bear on its ability and efficiency in terms of knowledge and character to satisfy a given or implied need. TQM of an education sector that shall achieve academic and research excellence and thus lead to SND. International Organizational for Standardization (ISO)'s 9000 standards focus continuous improvement system (CIS) or quality management (TQM) of all sorts of organizations. It defines the features on quality management system (QMS) that need to be in place to ensure that institutions identify and focus on improving areas where they have significant deficiencies. The objectives of the study are (i) to conduct action-based and field research on CIS to present QM ideas on education, (ii) to identify quality compliance requirements (QCRs) for an educational sector adherence to established standards based on an educational research conducted on quality circles (QCs) duly launched in twelve educational institutions in south India and (iii) to promote sustainable policy recommendation to strengthen quality and quantity educational services. Education coupled with entrepreneurial process is an intricate SND process which is a targeted area of research to alleviate poverty from the emerging enterprising spirit. Output of the process is an international and national educational service to the beneficiaries concerning to both educational quality and quantity management. TQM or CIS processes are divided into four sequential categories such as plan, do, check, and act (PDCA cycle) for continuous process improvement. In the planning phase, educationalists define the problem to be addressed, collect relevant data, and ascertain the root cause of the academic problem; in the doing phase, educationalists develop and implement a comprehensive solution, and decide upon a measurement to gauge its and efficiency; in the checking phase, educationalists confirm the result through before-and-after data comparison; in the acting phase, educationalists document their results, inform others about process changes, and make recommendations for the problem to be addressed in the next PDCA cycle. It is concluded that CIS as a management approach of an educational institution centered on quality, based on the participation of all its members and aiming at long term success through beneficiary satisfaction and benefits to all members of the institution and society. CIS in an educational sector is based on quality management from the beneficiary's point of view. Based on this action-based and field research conducted on CIS or TQM, sustainable policy recommendation may be taken to strengthen both quality and quantity educational services concerned to both knowledge and character in educational sector. In the present article, importance of possible inclusion of CIS and steps involved for an implementation of framework in education sector are discussed.