Assessment of Internal Quality Management and Its Contribution towards Higher Education Excellence

Abstract

Educational institutes are valuable assets of any nation. Education in general and higher education (HE) in particular is very important for socioeconomic growth of a country. Higher Education has different dimensions; it supplies human recourses, enhances scientific and technological advancement, provide new opportunities for research and development. Quality is an essentially required element at tertiary level educational institutions all over the world to promote excellence and bring the best practices. Universities have become more competitive and students and parents are in less compromising mood. They evaluate universities from different perspectives like fee structure, faculty, infrastructure and environment etc. The increasing demand of the stake holders has posed further challenges for the institutions to bring changes in the program designs, curricula, and adopt best practices available in that domain. This study attempts to evaluate the contribution of internal management policies to the higher education excellence. The study is cross-sectional and quantitative in nature. A structured survey is conducted to capture the perception of faculty and students' perception studying at post-graduate and PhD levels at Karachi. This survey has been considered as a quality lens through which effects of quality management has been analyzed. The data is collected by using quota sampling from private sector universities only, owing to the varied nature of internal management of these universities. The measurement tool is based on five-point Likert scale and comprises of two major subscales; quality management activities (QMA) and attention to quality aspects (AQA) taken as independent scales; whereas higher education excellence (HE) is considered as dependent variable. The data are coded and analyzed through SPSS software. It is concluded that overall perception of teachers and students for internal quality management and its contribution towards higher education excellence is positive. However, this varies among students and faculty while a variation is also found among various universities considered under this study.