The management of quality in education in an emergent society: a case study

Recent literature has increasingly made the point that quality in education in Third World countries is not only low, but is getting progressively worst Several melioristic measures have been proposed, but the present study puts the emphasis upon management. The paper uses a case study to investigate three models of quality management undertaken in Trinidad and Tobago during the first half of the twentieth century, and argues that practices utilized then were crafted with a view to achieving standards of quality in the interest of the colonial state as chief beneficiary

In the contempotary period. Third World countries have had an education agenda different from that adopted by their colonial predecessors, but quality management structures have not necessarily been adjusting accordingly, a possible reason for quality decline. The paper argues that in planning for effective management, the concept of quality itself may be reconceptualized as a way of enforcing the quality management strategies to be adopted. This approach, it is believed, will facilitate Third World nations in interventions aimed at quality improvement.