European Journal of Educational Studies 4(2), 2012

European Journal of Educational Studies 4(2), 2012

2012 Ozean Publication

EDUCATION QUALITY MANAGEMENT AS PANACEA FOR SUSTAINABLE

SCHOOL QUALITY REFORM IN NIGERIA

YUSUF, LATEEF ADEYEMI* and ALABI CHRISTIANAH OLUWAKEMI

Department of Curriculum & Instruction, School of Education
Emmanuel Alayande College of Education, Oyo, Oyo State. Nigeria
*E mail address for correspondence: adedeyemi@yahoo.com

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Abstract: The deteriorating quality of education and its traumatic effects on the nation is a problem of
concern. This paper examines quality management in education as panacea for sustainable school
quality reform in Nigeria. The paper establishes that despite all efforts being dedicated to reform for the
past three decades, quality has not been attained. Reform requires fundamental and comprehensive
change. The paper argues that there is an urgent need for refocusing and redesigning Nigerian
educational system from quality control practices to quality assurance. The paper considers application
of Total Quality Management (TQM) Principles as an ideal process towards sustainable school quality
reform. TQM develops a culture of total commitment to quality process and quality improvement never
ends. It also prevent wastages unlike quality control which is a retroactive action taken after possible
damages have been done. The paper put forward some recommendations towards enhancing quality
education in Nigeria. The paper strongly suggest that, decision making should be based on technically
sound data, and the result of the periodic and regular assessment should be used to drive continuous
improvement. Towards enhancing proper implementation of Total Quality Management principles, the
paper suggests a need for re-skilling, re-tooling and up-dating knowledge in planning and research unit
of the ministries of education. Also, educational administrators should not only be visionary, they must
be a missionary with zeal.
Keywords: quality management in education , Nigerian educational system
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INTRODUCTION
Education in Nigeria is regarded as an instruments par excellence for effecting national development
(Federal Republic of Nigeria, 2004, p.iii). This could be the reason why every scholar irrespective of the
school of taught agrees to the fact that education is the bedrock of economic, political and technological
development of a nation. A highly literate an economically productive educated citizenry can contribute

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far more tremendously to a nations gross domestic product than a large pool of irrelevantly educated
population. It is note worthy and highly pathetical that for the past three decades Nigerian educational
system continues to witness enormous quantitative growth at the expense of qualitative development.
Thus, the current education reforms in the education sector in Nigeria in the areas of planning,
curriculum innovation and teacher education among others are management mechanism to revamp
education industry to instill sustainable school quality reform.
The deteriorating quality of education which has continued unabated impinges heavy traumatic effects on
Nigeria citizens and the nation as a whole (Adewuya, 2002; Alumode, 2006; and Ezenwafor, 2006). As
noted by Gidado (2003) indicators of declining quality and wastages include high dropout, failure rates,
rampant examination malpractices and low performance in national survey of achievement. Effective
school quality reform that can stand the text of time must go beyond quality control practices. Without
quality education becomes a waste. Without quality product becomes largely counter productive, half
baked and of little relevant to the nations socio-political and economic development. Previous reform
effort includes the 1969 National Curriculum Conference, the introduction of 6-3-3-4 education system
in 1982, the education Reform Blue Print of 2000 and the introduction of the Universal Basic Education
Programme in 1999. As noted by Herman and Herman (2000,P.57) reform requires fundamental and
comprehensive change. Otherwise piece meal attempts at reform cannot do much but perpetuate the
statusquo.
This necessarily calls for purposeful re-engineering. It implies an urgent need for
fundamental rethinking in order to refocus and to redirect Nigerian educational system towards achieving
dramatic improvement in critical contemporary measures of qualitative performance.
The new quality reform effort is to be characterized by Total Quality Management (TQM) principles,
which are systems thinking and customer focus. However, a responsible political class, responsive and
sustainable economy, an efficient and effective leadership are all required to make the system work.
With commitment and determination, quality can be restored to the Nigerian educational system. The
significance of this paper is predicated on the need for sustainable school quality reform in Nigeria. Thus,
the paper discusses the concept of Total Quality Management (TQM) as a panacea towards enhancing
quality education in Nigeria.

Background Reform from Quality Control to Quality Assurance

Quality control practice in Nigeria is based essentially on school inspection, monitoring and control.
According to West Burnham (1994), quality control is concerned with product testing, responsibility
with supervisors, limited quality criteria and paper based system. The rational model has not provided
effective educational reform. School inspection is particularly criticized for its limitation as post
mortem examination of school activities. Hence, the need for quality assurance.
Quality assurance deals with the proactive or preventive means of ensuring quality inputs, teachinglearning process, the outcome and the academic achievement of students, (Akudo, 2004; Babalola, 2004).
Quality assurance aimed at getting thing done right at the first time and every time. The perverse nature
of TQM is perhaps its most distinctive characteristics, unlike the traditional quality control methods.
TQM aims at organization wide quality consciousness. It looks beyond the confines of the quality control
department and reaches out to management at all cadres.

Total Quality Management (TQM) in Education

The first wave of quality reform was characterized by industrially constructed Total Quality Management
(TQM) principles in the 1990s and a statistical focus for standard and production control, had given way
to a second wave, focusing on meeting clients need and value creation. Recently, education leaders now
recognize the potential for TQM as applied to educational organizations. Its application to the education
sector was propelled by the fact that educating people was viewed as the same as the business of
producing goods and services in an economy (Melisratos and Arendt, 1995).
Quality is related to a body of knowledge about products, services and customer/client satisfaction. The
term is not a synonym for excellence or goodness such as quality car or quality food (colleen, 1999).
Quality is creating an environment where educators, parents, government officials and community
representatives work together to provide students with the resources they need to meet current and future
academic and societal needs (Arcaro, 2005). Quality has to be seen in terms of relationships rather than

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intangible and unattainable goals. The crux of the relationships may be seen from a hierarchy of
approaches with inspection at one end of a spectrum and TQM at the other (inspection; post production
review, Quality control; product testing, Quality Assurance; audit Quality systems and Total Quality
Management; aiming at continuous improvement). In a World Bank discussion paper, Bruce (1986)
associated school quality with students level of academic performance and further elaborated those
schools with low test scores, high drop out rates, and repetition rates are allegedly of low quality.
According to Igwe (2004) quality education entails that the output of institutions are acceptable,
desirable, beneficial, efficient or effective. Total Quality Management is a philosophy with tools and
process for practical implementation aimed at achieving a culture of continuous improvement driven by
all employees of an organization in order to satisfy and delight Customer /client (West Burnham, 1995).
(T1) According to Enefiok (2006) the ultimate goals include the attainment of total customer satisfaction
through defect free products and quality service, the identification and exploitation of competitors
weakness and harnessing of untapped market opportunities among others.
Total Quality Management philosophy is built upon tenets that can be applied to any organization. They
are systems thinking, client focused, continuous improvement, management by fact, participatory
management, professional development, team work and leadership (Baldrige National Quality Program,
2001; Ojo, 2006). System theory establishes a strong interdependency and interrelatedness among the
component parts that make a system (Dening, 1994) while the term client encompasses not only students
but also stake holders such as private and public owners, funding agencies and potential employers.

Total Quality Management [TQM] and School Organizational Performance

Increasing demand in educational institutions for accountability makes it imperative for our schools to
fulfil their obligations to the clients by improving and sustaining quality education (Ajayi; 2004,
Madumere-Obike; 2004). As noted by Ojo (2006) TQM is a management programmes that is qualitycentred and providing satisfaction to the organizational clients and the realization of organizational goals
objectives. This is probably in line with the view of Babalola (2004, P.47) TQM aimed at preventing
quality problems and ensuring that only conforming products reach the students. Also, Tony and Mariane
(2000) opined that most colleges should recognize that continuous improvement is essential if they are to
survive and prosper. This is based on the fact that the pre-eminent principle for quality management is
not control but improvement.
Further on quality management and performance, Senge (2000) and National Commission on Excellence
in Education (1993) noted that schools that innovates and improve are these that approach change from a
system perspective and the more systemic the change the more the sustainability of the reform. However,
Melissaratos and Arendt (1995) and Nicklin (2001) report that the application of TQM in higher
education in the United States proved successful because of the positive attitude to its application in the
education. While Ojo (2006) discovered that people are aware of the importance of the use of TQM and
that TQM enhances students performance. Umoru-Onuka (2003) shows very, clearly that the use of
TQM in some Nigerian schools yielded good results and tremendously improved teaching and learning.
It is worthy of note that TQM looks beyond the boundaries of an organization and extend prominence to
the interest of its clientele (Birnbaum, 2001 and Ojo, 2006). The benefit of this focus is further
evidenced by the 2001 Baldrige Award Winners in education. Chugach School District (CSD) in
Anchorage, Alaska and Pearl River School District (PRSD) in Pearl River, New York. Through
systemic changes and consistent emphasis on student achievement both district have made significant
improvements (Jacqueline, 2005).

Implications of Total Quality Management in Education

The emphasis on totality means, it is inclusive of all the employees. In education this would include
support staff as well as teaching and lecturing staff. There is shared understanding of an explicit set of
values with implications for leadership and management style, therefore the school leadership must not
only be visionary, they must be a missionary with zeal. All decisions are based on supporting data;
therefore, nothing is determined by feelings of precedent. TQM is based on prevention and concern with
optimizing outcomes. Customer focused rather than provider needs and customers are both external (e.g.
students and parents) and internal (e.g. staff), this implies that each teacher will be a client to the next

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teacher by providing at least near perfect pupils for the next class (Tony and Mariane, 2000; West
Burnham, 1994).
Quality management will be hailed as the most important paradigm shift to come out of the twentieth
century. Indeed, if school organization management principles do not include management by fact,
continuous improvement, the constant pursuit of excellence, knowing how to do the right thing, the first
time not only will they not be in the game, they will not survive.

RECOMMENDATIONS

The following recommendations are made with a view to enhancing sustainable school quality reform in
Nigeria;
Decision making (on possible policy orientations, mobilizations and the channeling of resources, e.t.c)
should be based on sound footing of systematically collected information and technically sound data,
interpreted with the help of appropriate type of hindsight and factual knowledge. Therefore, the planning
and research unit of ministries of education will accordingly need to be strengthened in terms of; reskilling, re-tooling up-dating of knowledge and improved funding. This will be a means of equipping
them for the task of ensuring quality in education.
Steps should be taken to build capacity for day to day instructional and management supervision at the
local level. There is need to institute a vigorous education and self improvement programmes. Every staff
should be properly educated on the quality philosophy, therefore seminars, conferences and workshops
should be made compulsory.
There is need to institute the practice of periodic and regular assessment of educational process.
Considering various inputs and the processes involved in relation to the performance of the entire system
and use the result to drive continuous improvement on the systems and processes. The management must
re-affirm that quality improvement never ends.
A strong and visionary administrator is a criterion for quality in schools. Administrators should be able to
define the school mission, manage curriculum and instruction, be truthfully focused and be able to
encourage individuals to communicate to the management, the obstacles they face in attaining their
improvement.
Government should seriously address the data problem in planning the nations educational programmes.
It has not been possible to extrapolate school-age population figures from published census data, in a
situation whereby the national population census is over-politicized. The situation has given rise to the
phenomenon of discordant data and even guesstimates become impossible.
Education sector needs to be adequately funded by the government. Reform should be tied to the
availability of the requisite resources to achieve them, with poor funding it is impossible to implement
reforms that provide quality education. Therefore, United Nations recommendation of at least 26% of
the annual budget for education sector should be implemented.

CONCLUSION

The gradual erosion of standards is perhaps the most prominent feature and obviously the most
disheartening aspect of the Nigerian educational system in the past three decades. Scholars and
educational managers are particularly worried about the deteriorating quality of education and its adverse
effect on the nations socio-political and economic development. Despite huge amount of nations
resources and all efforts being dedicated to reform, quality has not been attained.
After well over forty years of political independence, there is an urgent need to redirect and refocus
Nigerian education at all levels to avoid wastages. The traditional practice of quality control through

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school inspection, monitoring and control is a mere damage mechanism, with retroactive action taken
after possible damage is done. TQM develops a culture of total commitment to quality process, and
quality improvement never ends. The introduction and application of Total Quality Management (TQM)
Philosophy is both proactive and preventive. Thus it aims at getting things done right, at the first time
and every time.

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