IMPLEMENTATION OF THE TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT IN SELECTED COLLEGES IN A UNIVERSITY

Abstract

Quality, generally means a parameter which decides the inferiority or superiority of a product or service. It is a measure of goodness to understand how a product or service meets its expectations. Therefore, quality is somewhat of an intangible expression based on perception that when a product or service exceeds our expectations it is considered to be of good quality. While quality is by itself a powerful competitive weapon, the concept of total quality management is also to continually produce products of high quality in order to meet total customers’ satisfaction. It is a continuous process of improvement in work culture, services, systems, and processes to ensure a continuing success of the organization. The principles of total quality management have been applied to all types of organizations. It is in this premise that this study is geared towards the assessment of management of a premier educational institution in the Visayas area applying the Total Quality Management (TQM) principles with an end view of proposing recommendations for improvements. The study is aimed to determine the level of implementation of Total Quality Management in selected colleges in a University, on the five dimensions such as; the quality of management, quality of infrastructure management, quality of teachers, quality of examinations, and quality of college objectives. The research design used is a descriptive method, using the proportionate stratified sampling technique, the instrument of which was adapted from a standard tool by Masood (2009)with a reliability coefficient at 0.91(Cronbach Alpha), distributed among 478 student respondents. The study sought to find out the significant degree of variance(ANOVA) on the five dimensions, the degree of variance(ANOVA) among the seven colleges on the level of implementation of TQM practices, and the degree of relationship(Chi-Square) between the respondents’ course profile and their perception on the level of implementation of TQM practices. The findings revealed that there was a significant degree of variance on the level of implementation of TQM practices among the different colleges. There was one each from among the seven colleges, has fully implemented on the quality of management and the quality of teachers, four have fully implemented in the quality of college objectives and all the seven colleges have moderately implemented the quality of infrastructure management and quality of examinations. The ANOVA computation showed a significant degree of variance on the five dimensions, although the overall composite mean range of all the dimensions fall under moderately implemented, yet the variance showed significantly. With quality of infrastructure management and examination got the lowest of 2.81 and 2.86 respectively while quality of college objectives got the highest at 3.15 followed by 3.02 for the quality of teachers. The relationship between the course profile and the level of implementation of TQM practices is significant. Hence, the research findings would be a good reference for the institution to work on the improvements for greater customer satisfaction, profitability and competitiveness