TQM‐based self‐assessment in the education sector. Experiences from a Swedish upper secondary school project
| Date | 01 October 2006 |
| Published date | 01 October 2006 |
| Pages | 299-323 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/09684880610703929 |
| Author | Magnus Svensson,Bengt Klefsjö |
| Subject Matter | Education |
TQM-based self-assessment in
the education sector
Experiences from a Swedish upper secondary
school project
Magnus Svensson and Bengt Klefsjo
¨
Lulea
˚University of Technology, Lulea
˚, Sweden
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe a self-assessment project, the steps taken and the
tools used, and above all, focus on the evaluation made after the decision to discontinue, learning and
acquiring knowledge about self-assessment as a methodology in educational organizations.
Design/methodology/approach – In order to investigate the experiences of the project, interviews
were conducted with the Upper Secondary Education Officer and with ten School Principals and a
questionnaire was administered to gather opinions among the other staff members. The analysis
mainly consisted of searching for potential patterns among the respondents’ answers studying their
own words by use of three different criteria.
Findings – It is important how an organization enters a self-assessment project, or even any quality
project. Many people do not seem to have thought very much about what is considered to be quality in
the environment in which they operate, and even less have a shared view within the organization. Too
often organizations tend to start working with self-assessment without sufficiently thinking of “why”
and “how” to accomplish the project. The work is performed without preparing all those who are to
participate in the project and without discussing the core values that constitute the work. If the
organization has not reached the necessary maturity level it is probably a waste of resources to start a
comprehensive self-assessment project.
Orginality/value – As a synthesis form the analysis, a model for how an organization should start
self-assessment is presented, as well as a number of guiding points. Also, the new tool “La
¨rostegen” is
described.
Keywords Self assessment,Total quality management, Education sector, Educationaladministration,
Leadership, Sweden
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Total quality management (TQM) is a management concept, originally developed
during the 1980s to support private goods-producing companies. The origin of TQM is
heavily based on the ideas by Edwards Deming and Joseph Juran and their work in the
Japanese industry after the Second World War (Deming, 1986, 1994a; Juran, 1951,
1989). Some perspectives of the quality evolution and the TQM concept can be found in
Bergman and Klefsjo
¨(2003), Park Dahlgaard (2002) and Dale (1999).
The TQM concept has subsequently been transferred to the private service sector
and, nowadays, also to the public sector. There are even examples of local
municipalities, which have used values, methodologies and tools from TQM to improve
the societal services; see Osborne and Gaebler (1992) and Fredriksson (2004).
In several countries, organizations in the education sector and the health care sector
are working with methodologies and tools from TQM. Illustrations of that can be found
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TQM-based
self-assessment
299
Quality Assurance in Education
Vol. 14 No. 4, 2006
pp. 299-323
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0968-4883
DOI 10.1108/09684880610703929
in, e.g. Rombach (1990), Lagrosen (1997) and Zbaracki (1998). The use of TQM in the
public sector is sometimes considered as part of the new public management (Hood,
1995), which is a generic term for a large number of change initiatives, or, as
Christensen and Laegreid (2001, p. 19) states: “... the concept is loose and multifaceted
and offers a kind of ‘shopping basket’ of different elements for reform of public
administration”.
As TQM has been applied to different organizational environments, its
appropriateness and suitability are sometimes questioned. The criticism also relate s
to applications of TQM in educational organizations. For instance, Kohn (1993) states
that TQM might be useful within industrial organizations, but not in the classroom. He
describes this as educators trying to transplant a model, methods and the metaphors
included, stemming from the business world into classrooms. Another argument in the
criticism is that introducing TQM in the educational sphere implies an economization
of that sector and at the same time introduction of a new system of values that
challenge traditional pedagogical values (Kenway et al., 1995). Furthermore, Scherp
(2004) interprets TQM as just a measure of quality in terms of satisfied customers.
An example of, and perhaps even an explanation of, the increased interest in quality
improvement work and TQM in the public sector is the increasing requirements by
different governmental authorities in several countries, including Australia, Great Britain,
Singapore and Sweden (Anderson, 2002; Ahmad and Zain, 2002; Svensson, 2004).
In Sweden, for example, since 1987 a new administrative law has been in force in the
public sector, which calls for the removal of barriers and better access to authorities.
Furthermore, in 1999 the National Council for Quality and Development was
established by the Swedish Government to support quality improvements wi thin
Swedish governmental agencies. As the educational sector is mostly in the public
domain in Sweden, the Swedish National Agency for School Improvement was
established in March 2003 to support schools in their quality work (Myndigheten fo
¨r
skolutveckling, 2004).
Today, there is an interest in quality improvement work among Swedish
educational organizations, partly due to requirements laid down by authorities. For
instance, the Commission on Advanced Vocational Education in Sweden requires that
educational organizations use quality assurance and some form of quality evaluation
(Kommitte
´nfo
¨r kvalificerad yrkesutbildning, 1997). Another example is Government
Ordinance SFS, 1997:702 regarding quality accounting within the public education
system in Sweden, which requires the compilation of annual accounts.
How quality work is accomplished differs, but there are several examples of
educational organizations in Sweden and around the world performing quality work
based on TQM. Prior to beginning TQM work, an organization is often recommended
to start with self-assessment to get a picture of its strengths and improvement
possibilities. According to Dahlgaard et al. (1998, p. 328) it is “generally accepted that a
TQM process starts with a self-evaluation[1] ...”, and Zink (1997, p. 48) says that
“self-assessment is a powerful management tool[2]” and states that it pro vides a
direction for continuous improvement initiatives in key performance areas.
Some recent references here are Lagrosen (1999), Grant et al. (2004) and Saraiva et al.
(2003) discussing self-assessment using award criteria and Srikanthan and Dalry mple
(2004) discussing the use of TQM at university level and presenting a model for the
practice.
QAE
14,4
300
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