Higher Education's Institutions Response to Statutory TQM Case Study

Introduction

Globally customers have been demanding value for money on any products and services that they purchase from manufacturers and service providers. Japanese scholars started TQM with the US and other countries through scholars such as Crosby (1979), Deming (1966), Feigenbaum (1961), Imai (1986)Ishikawa (1985), Juran (1995), Taguchi (1997) further developing the TQM system theory and frameworks for adoption by businesses. According to Imai (1997), total quality management requires its own culture where people understand it and gain the required skills gradually over time and this should be done through the Japanese GembaKeizen concept. 'Gemba' in Japanese means 'the workplace' and 'Keizen' means 'continuous improvement,' which is a method of management based on changing one thing at a time (Imai, 1997)

A number of organizations have responded by adopting Total Quality Management (TQM) philosophies to address the challenge (Abubakar and Luki, 2016). Many Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in different parts of the world have found it necessary to adopt the TQM philosophy in order to effectively respond to the pressure from their stakeholders as well as a way of remaining competitive in the market. Higher education institutions stakeholders include; students, parents, employees, government, and funding organizations (Todorut, 2013). Yusuf and Aspinawall (2000) highlighted that TQM helps in making a culture of trust, cooperation, teamwork, quality-mindedness, eagerness for consistent advancement, continuous learning and eventually, a working environment that imparts to a firm’s success and existence. Suggesting that advantages of TQM in educational institutions will supports educational institutions in order to create an upgraded service to its customers namely the students and employers. The consistent improvement focus of TQM is an essential component for satisfying the accountability essential to educational reform.

The concept of total quality management has been defined in a variety of ways. According to Stanciu (2003) cited by Todorut (2013)) total quality management is “the management of all the elements of an organization- processes, practices, systems, methodologies-and all those who are involved or damage in any way the quality of product or service”. A similar definition is proffered by Sohel-Uz-Zaman and Anjalin (2016) who points out that TQM is a proactive approach to confirm quality into the product, service and design of process and then to continuously improve it. In essence the concept denotes a system and a set of practices that are put in place to ensure the continuous of improvement of service delivery and customer satisfaction (Sohel-Uz-Zuman and Anjalin, 2016) The core objective of the of total quality management paradigm is the need to generate within an organization an environment in which all its assets are used effectively so as to provide quality products and services to its various publics (Kuipa and Tapera, 2016). The objectives of this chapter are listed below:

• •

  To present the importance and role of TQM in Higher Education

• •

  To outline Global and African Views on TQM

• •

  To discuss the theory of TQM in relation Higher Education

• •

  To outline Zimbabwe Higher Education Statutory Quality Assurance Benchmarks

• •

  To review of the responses of Higher Education Institutions in Zimbabwe to the introduction of statutory total quality management in education.

• •

  To recommend a model of TQM implementation for Zimbabwe.