Total Quality Management In Higher Education

In this globalized world, where competition among higher educational institutions for students and funds is highly significant. Thus in order to survive in such situation, these institutions need to worry about their quality. Students, parents or sponsoring agencies as customers of the educational institutions are now highly conscious of their rights or getting value for their money and time spent. They are now demanding good quality education. Thus it is necessary to constantly take care about the relevance of the courses and programmes according to the needs of the customers. In order to maintain the standard efforts should be made continuously to improve the quality of educational facilities. Every institution is accountable to its own

Application of TQM will go a long way in revolutionizing the higher education system. Benefits of TQM include heightened employee morale, better teamwork among departments, bridging faculty-staff functions, increased quality from customer viewpoint and continuous development of everyone who is part of higher education institution.

Raj (2011) in his study on Total Quality Management in Higher Education found that universities have to maintain the quality of educational provisions to secure their position in the market. TQM facilitates the universities to attract student and secure its funding opportunities for sustainability while on the other hand it helps universities to develop qualified professionals and good citizens with great values by making the provision of quality education.

Kaur (2012) in her study on Total Quality Management in Higher Education found that TQM in higher education has now become the major concern of education in the 21st century. It can help a school or college to provide better service to its primary customers i.e. students and

The future of our economic system, and thus our nation, is directly coupled to our ability as a nation to establish and keep a high quality higher education system. If suitable and necessary recognition and support will be extended to Indian educational institutes and universities then India has the potential for extending frontiers of knowledge in all disciplines. Total quality management is hard work. There are many barriers in implementation of TQM in education. The first major barrier for the application of TQM in education is the misinterpretation of TQM philosophy and the lack of necessary knowledge about TQM. Lack of proper leadership is another barrier. Leaders should be willing to initiate the change and provide the resources needed for team efforts directed towards achieving the vision.