MODEL DEVELOPMENT/SELECTION FOR QUALITY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM IN ETHIOPIAN PRIVATE HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS: THE CASE OF SELECTED UNIVERSITIES

Abstract

Like any other sector, the educations sector especially the private higher education institutions are facing quality problems. In Ethiopia, leadership (lack of poor leadership and commitment with respect to customer, lack quality policy and objective, lack of responsibilities and authorities for relevant roles with in the universities), support (shortages of resources like human, material and financial resources), infrastructure necessary for the universities processes (building and associated utilities, and equipment), planning (poor planning on actions to address the risks and opportunities, poor planning of changes), operation (poor planning, implementation and control of the work processes), and improvement (actions regarding nonconformity, corrective actions, poor attention on continual improvement.) are the major challenges for the sector. This study is therefore, conducted to propose suitable quality management model for the sector. In order to achieve this study, different QMMs alredy tested in different HEIs has been studied in detail by reviewing various literatures including their success and failure story in the sector. Some of the models studied in detail under this study are: Massy's six quality process domains model, and Generic Model for quality management in higher education. In addition, the current practiced quality management issues and if they have any model to achieve the quality of education are also assessed by the questioner from the sample universities. The major parameters that have been seen with in the selected PHEIs are general quality at organization level, leadership and commitment, quality planning, resource, operation, customer communication, performance evaluation and improvement. Furthermore, the above mentioned quality issues in the selected private higher education institutions are investigated with different types of questions in the questioner. The analysis is carried out the overall perception and practiced quality parameters by both the employees and students shows poor. From all quality parameters, only resource and other quality related issues scores the mean value of 3.08 and 3.14 respectively. The other parameters score below 2.5. Furthermore, as observed directly, most of the private higher education institutions are not initiated by themselves rather they are enforced by the governing bodies like MoE and HERQA.