Developing a generic model for total quality management in higher education in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

The field of higher education has been progressing at a rapid pace in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia over the past decade, with doubling the number of government and private universities and colleges. Quality and accreditation are of great importance to higher education institutes world-wide. Thus, developing a generic model for quality management in higher education is badly needed in the country.

Introduction

There are several definitions for quality in the literature. It can simply be defined as the ability of a particular system to provide and ensure the quality of the services, which it provides and improve the outputs, which it produces so as to satisfy the expectations of the customers of the provided services and produced outputs. Quality control is a product-oriented process aiming at checking the products/outputs/services of a particular system and comparing them with predefined and referenced quality criteria and standard specifications. Appropriate measures and actions will then be undertaken if the products/outputs/services of the system do not comply with the specified quality standards (Talaat & Khamis 2012). On the other hand, quality assurance is a preventive strategy that ensures compliance of the products/outputs/services of a particular system with its predefined quality standards and specifications. Such a precautionary scheme comprises the policies and protocols that control the different steps of the production process. It also encompasses the enforced measures and actions, which will be undertaken to avoid any potential problems or faults in achieving quality of the products/outputs/services of the system. Such a preventive approach is thus a process-oriented rather than a product-oriented system. Quality assurance is accomplished through the implementation of specific steps, including audits and issuing reports and other measures (Talaat & Khamis 2012).

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has witnessed rapid change and important development in higher education in all fields and at all levels over the past 10 years (The National Report on Higher Education in the KSA 2009; Bin Abdulrahman 2011; Telmesani et al. 2011). The number of higher education institutes has doubled to 52 universities and colleges funded by the government and private sectors, and there are currently 31 medical schools in the country (Bin Abdulrahman 2011; Bin Abdulrahman et al. 2012). During this same decade, revolutionary changes have occurred in the fields of quality and accreditation. The fact that quality is one of the main challenges to higher education in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia necessitated the developing of a generic model for total quality management in higher education institutes in the kingdom.

Quality management in higher education

Quality is greatly needed in higher education in order to ensure the efficient performance and continuous improvement and development of higher education universities and institutions, which in turn results in gaining the confidence of the community and funding agencies, and building up trust in their graduates (Srikanthan 1999). Moreover, the current view of most of the governments, world-wide, to higher education is that higher education has to be more responsive in terms of: (a) Tuning higher education to the social and economic needs as much as possible, (b) Increasing the accessibility and availability to higher education, (c) Increasing the number of universities and higher education institutes and hence decreasing unit cost, and (d) Ensuring consistency between the services and outputs provided by of universities and higher education institutes. Adopting quality in higher education deals and addresses these issues and increases the compliance of universities and higher education institutes with these concerns (Srikanthan 1999).

Like in other systems, quality in relation to universities and higher education institutes has three principal dimensions; namely the structure (inputs), the process and the outcome (outputs) as shown in Figure 1. Thus, in higher education, quality is achieved by performing the core functions and producing the major outcomes or outputs of teaching/learning (graduates), research, and community service (Srikanthan 1999).

Figure 1. Dimensions of quality in higher education.

In order to achieve these core functions in higher education, quality management (planning, assurance, and control), should be adopted in the inputs, processes, and outputs with greater emphasis on the outputs/outcomes. The university/higher education institute must be committed to maintaining and improving quality, through effective leadership and active participation of all faculty members, administrative staff as well as students. This necessitates the establishment of a Quality Deanship/Unit within the structure of the central administration of the university/higher education institution. Such a Quality Deanship/Unit should be supported with the appropriate staff, and financial, administrative, and technical resources; to be able to work effectively (NCAAA 2011). Spreading the culture of quality at the academic level is equally important for the proper running of the Quality Deanship/Unit (Srikanthan 1999).

ISO 9000:2000 and TQM standards as quality management models in higher education

The Quality Deanship/Unit must apply a quality management model in order to ensure, maintain, and improve quality. There have been several attempts to apply quality management models/strategies imported from industry into higher education (Srikanthan 1999; Srikanthan & Dalrymple 2003).

These include the following:

• Quality assurance system to ISO 9000:2000 standards: This system is based on eight quality management principles: (1) Customer driven definitions of quality, (2) Involvement of Leadership, (3) Engagement of people, (4) Process-oriented approach, (5) Systematic operandi for management, (6) Ongoing improvement, (7) Evidence-based approach to decision-making, and (8) Reciprocal beneficial supplier relationships

• Total quality management (TQM) model: This model is based on the following management principles (Srikanthan 1999): (1) Constant improvement, (2) Management commitment, (3) Customer or product driven definitions of quality, (4) Team work, (5) Effective communication, and (6) Deployability of statistical techniques in monitoring the processes and solving the problems.

The attempts of using Quality Assurance System to ISO 9000:2000 Standards or the TQM model in higher education were, however, unsuccessful for the following reasons:

1. The service and education functions of higher education should have different sets of quality criteria and specifications.

2. The ISO 9000:2000 and TQM Standards are suitable for systems having well-defined processes and providing specific services, e.g. banking, tourism, etc. Such systems could therefore be managed and controlled by the ISO 9000 and TQM Standards. On the other hand, given that higher education has two major functions; namely the service and education functions, higher education cannot be well and thoroughly managed and controlled by the ISO 9000 and TQM standards.

3. The ISO 9000:2000 and particularly the TQM could be an appropriate model for the service functions but not the education functions of higher education. This function cannot be measured or controlled by variables since it is far too extensive in the processes and delivery (Srikanthan 1999; Srikanthan & Dalrymple 2003).

4. The ISO 9000:2000 and TQM standards are based on customer or product driven definitions of quality. In higher education, there are several customers including students, employer, government, etc., and there are several products including education, knowledge, research, community service, etc.

5. One of the major quality management in the TQM standards is effective communications within the university/higher education institute. This is rarely reached in higher education (Srikanthan 1999).

Models emphasizing quality management in teaching and learning

• Transformative model: This model is based on the following management principles in higher education: (1) The teaching and learning processes should be transparent and integrated and thus leading to “Total Student Experience”, (2) Teaching and learning is based on a dialogue between learners and teachers. With the rise of social accountability, such dialogue should be expanded to include other stakeholders including the community, patients, and users/employers as well, (3) Existence of dynamic exchange among the teachers about the teaching and learning, and (4) Providing effective feed-back to students (Srikanthan & Dalrymple 2003).

• An engagement model of program quality: Such model is based on the following management principles in higher education: (1) Engagement of students, academics, and administrative staff (leaders) in teaching and learning, (2) Participatory cultures, (3) Interactive Teaching and learning, (4) Connected Program Requirements, (5) Adequate resources (Srikanthan & Dalrymple 2003).

• University of learning model: This model postulates that the core functions of higher education namely: education, research, and community are essentially related to learning at different levels. Thus, improves learning in higher education improves quality of higher education (Srikanthan & Dalrymple 2003).

• Model of a responsive university: This model postulates that in order to maintain and improve quality in higher education, the universities and higher education institutes must be responsive and service-oriented. This necessitates building new relationships and partnerships both internally and externally (Srikanthan & Dalrymple 2003).

Generic model for quality management in teaching and learning (QMTL) in higher education in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia

The above mentioned models emphasizing quality management in teaching and learning complement each other and revolve around two major management principles in higher education; namely: (1) Student learning and (2) Dynamic collaboration at the education delivery level (Srikanthan & Dalrymple 2003).

It is worth noting here the experience of the Faculty of Medicine at Damascus University in applying a quality assurance system model to curriculum transformation. There have been several obstacles in applying such system, such as the bureaucratic university governance structures and the rigid rules and regulations (Kayyal & Gibbs 2012a,b). The applied model revolved around a number of themes and measures including:

1. Establishing an organizational management system.

2. Involving senior faculty members who are more likely to be laggards in the initiation and planning phase of the transformation process.

3. Adopting an appreciative inquiry approach to let all faculty members be involved and participate in the change.

4. Developing a transparent communication plan with the faculty members during the different phase of curriculum transformation.

5. Securing resources for transformation.

6. Risk assessment and risk management plan.

Such model is just limited to curriculum transformation in a medical school and does not ensure quality of teaching and learning. Thus, there is need to develop a Generic Holistic Model for Quality Management in Teaching and Learning (QMTL) that encompasses all the management principles of the above-mentioned models. Such a model should be based on the following two aspects: (1) Clear focus on “transformation” of the learners, and (2) A synergistic collaboration at the learning interface (Srikanthan & Dalrymple 2003). This model addresses the rationale for having different sets of quality criteria and specifications for the service and education functions of higher education aspects (Srikanthan & Dalrymple 2003).

Implementing the generic holistic model for quality management in teaching and learning (QMTL)

Implementing the generic holistic model for quality management in teaching and learning (QMTL) ensures the adoption of the management principles of all the models mentioned-above and emphasizing quality management in teaching and learning. This includes the following actions and measures:

1. Transformation of the learners.

2. Engagement of students, academics, and administrative staff (leaders) in the teaching and learning and thus enriching the learning experience for the students.

3. Interactive teaching and learning.

4. Academic professionalism that emphasizes openness, dialogue and transparency and thus improving the staff-student interface.

5. Enhancing the learning experience of students by increasing their ability to discern the relevant aspects of variation. This is accomplished by the synergistic involvement of academics in both the teaching and research teams.

6. Ensuring the responsive and service-oriented nature of the universities and higher education institutes.

7. Building new relationships and partnerships both internally and externally with the community, industry, government, and other institutions locally and internationally.

From the discussion above, it is evident that we would select the generic holistic model for quality management in teaching and learning (QMTL) to provide the quality of education that we plan and aim for our institution. We would further encourage other institutions to adopt such model in their educational systems. We plan to disseminate the model to other medical colleges world-wide through the Saudi International Medical Education Conference (SIMEC), which is the official international medical education conference of the Saudi Society for Medical Education (SSME) and the Saudi Deans Committee (SDC). SIMEC is one of the largest international meetings in medical education dedicated to reporting and discussing recent developments and research in medical education. SIMEC 2014 is the fourth conference to be held in Saudi Arabia and was hosted by the College of Medicine at Al-Qassim University in Qassim from 24 to 27 November 2014. Leading international medical education experts shared their experiences in medical education and it should have been a good opportunity for disseminating QMTL.

Notes on contributors

AHMAD I. AL-SHAFEI, MD, PhD, MHPE, was an Associate Professor in Physiology and Medical Education and the Head of the Assessment Unit at the College of Medicine at Al-Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University (IMSIU), Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He is currently an Associate Professor in Physiology King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

KHALID BIN ABDULRAHMAN, MD, is a Professor of Family Medicine and Medical Education,

Vice Rector for Planning, Development & Quality. Professor Chair, Dr AlKholi Chair for Developing Medical Education in Saudi Arabia, Al-Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University (IMSIU), Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

KHALID I. AL-QUMAIZI, MD, is an Assistant Professor of Family Medicine and the Dean of the College of Medicine at Al-Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University (IMSIU), Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

ABDELMONIEM S. EL-MARDI, MD, PhD, is a Professor of Anatomy and Medical education, and the Director of the Pre-Clinical Phase and E-Learning Unit at Al-Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University (IMSIU), Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The publication of this supplement has been made possible with the generous financial support of the Dr Hamza Alkholi Chair for Developing Medical Education in KSA.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the article.