Quality in Higher Education

Today I attended the "defense" of an interesting PhD thesis in the Department of Management Studies at IIT Madras. The thesis focused on Total Quality Management in Engineering Educational Institutions in India. During the presentation, a student currently pursuing a PhD asked the PhD candidate to define 'quality' in the education field, in three sentences or less. A rather simple question, but one that is extremely difficult to answer. One can use the definitions of quality suggested by standards such as ISO or MBNQA, but they are unsatisfactory when applied to the field of Education. Education is amorphous, covers both knowledge and skill, product and process areas. If the ultimate purpose of education is to create a desire and a process for lifelong learning, then quality of education can be defined in terms of achieving these objectives effectively and efficiently. Education and educators, at their best, are great works of art- masterpieces. Educators have to embrace TQM and continuous process improvement to refine their art and craft.