Quality in universities

The mission of any university is to teach and research many subjects. That of a factory is to produce good products efficiently to benefit shareholders and workers. Prima facie, there is not much in common. But education is now a service industry and gurus agree that TQM is applicable to services. There is government concern in several countries over quality and value for money in universities. Responses to government papers have been handled by social scientists and ASDU’s ignorant of industrial quality theory and practice. Yet there are parallels between industrial TQM and best university practices. Some ancient practices are good from a Quality viewpoint and some new ones devised by governments, are counter-productive.