The Question of Quality

Quality is the only area in product and service industry which is more talked than practiced. It is not because professionals don’t want to bring Quality but it is because most of them are not aware of what and how quality is assured in a given context. Unfortunately, the higher education sector is heavily influenced by ISO standards. Institutions take pride is getting ISO certification and treat it as a quality implementation.

ISO has given IWA guidelines for education but has not given any set of standards for education. Thus what institution achieve is certificate in management. The question of Quality remains unanswered.

Regulatory bodies like NCAAA have been established in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to assure quality in higher education but even the regulatory bodies cannot guarantee quality because accreditation may be achieved by fabricated data and presentation.

Quality comes when we win the confidence of those who are the part of the system. Once they are convinced, they practice what they believe. Standards if forced would not bring any result. They bring change once they are internalized.