Quality assurance at the University

For many years, most flourishing private enterprises have founded their business success on the concept of total quality management (TQM). Rather than leaving the quality of their operations to chance, they have adopted a systematic approach to maintaining quality at every level of the organisation.

The University would benefit in various way if quality was a top priority throughout all its systems. Although quality in teaching is fundamental, the whole culture at University should reflect quality.

Every member of the staff must know they have a role to play, and supporting staff and departments must ensure they are identifying the needs of their customers. Some University staff confuse quality with bureaucracy and tend to put up unnecessary barriers to a quality service.

The most obvious results of good quality management are that the University would attract and keep many customers, the operation would be cost effective, and money wasted to correct errors would be saved.

The undue delay in dealing with applications for postgraduate courses is a case in point where the University is not only losing customers but also making research at our University unattractive.

There are sad stories of students applying simultaneously to our University and a competitor university for postgraduate studies who were not only accepted much earlier by the competitor but were even well advanced in their studies and research by the time our University accepted them.

It is true our academics and administration are short staffed, grossly so, compared with other universities, but certainly some application of TQM systems to our recruitment efforts would go a long way to compete successfully with other universities.

It may also be true that our University has higher requirements for M.Phils and Ph.Ds than most other universities. The University is perhaps also very protective of these requirements even though they are rather outdated in a world that is promoting research and innovation.

On the other hand, it is not unknown to hear of graduates who passed with a mere third class degree from our University who were not only allowed to pursue doctoral studies on a part-time basis at a prestigious UK University but also obtained their doctorate within a very short time, presenting a thesis of a quality that would not pass the standards of any of our University's academic departments. It is difficult but necessary to strike the correct balance.

Our University also needs to avoid cases such as that of a postgraduate student who was given a very rough ride by three relatively inexperienced local examiners who were described as carrying out more of a witchhunt than an examination. The external examiner's report on this case stated that the candidate had reached the required standard.

Our postgraduate applicants and students deserve better. It is certainly not in the University's interest to scare away those interested in carrying out research on the pretence that one is promoting quality and excellence.

However, in general, the University has been slow to adopt TQM. Rather than having to seek customers, it has traditionally been a demand-led service, and although there have in the past been a number of incentives to improve performance, it has to be said there seemed to be limited enthusiasm to do so.

Too often, services were started and organised to suit the interests or the perceived training needs of the providers of the service, rather than tailored to the needs of the clients. This could explain, for example, why our University has never set up a course for veterinary medicine and surgery and why at one point, a numerus clausus was enforced in some nursing courses.

The emphasis began to change with the post-Mintoff era when for the first time the University made quality in the services offered a priority. Recently, further attempts were carried out to address the question of quality but these were too biased in favour of students' views. All blame for anything that was reported to be not totally to the students' satisfaction was placed four-square on the shoulders of the lecturers concerned.

One needs to go deeper to examine the wounds. Such an analysis might reveal lecturers are not receiving timely and high quality support. The support systems at the University could also do with some TQM.

This is especially true with regard to the timeframes imposed on lecturers. It should also apply, perhaps with more vigour, to timeframes with which the University administration must abide.

However, one must admit the University is still experiencing teething problems in its work on TQM systems and it would be irrational and unrealistic not to expect some bumps on the way.

Finally, quality is costly both in human resources and in time. In the long term, it has been shown to be a cost-effective venture.