What's Wrong with Education ?

What follows is an edited version of a report I wrote for my PGCE qualification on “Quality” in the modern education system based on my own experience of teaching in a Further Education college.

I have changed certain aspects of the content so as not to identify the institution, although my scathing criticisms are of the adoption of TQM in what should be a part of the service sector and not of the college itself which, like all such institutions have no choice other than to play the TQM game. I argue below that the modern education system is not aimed at primarily meeting the needs of either students (as most such institutions constantly proffer) or ‘society’ in the broader context of social structures outside the corporate/capitalist ethos.

One thing I would have changed as a result of my experience is my general regard for the computer student-tracking system. I am now much more critical of this because, in ways I should have foreseen given what I have said below, it’s validity results largely from how staff determine which factors about students are important and how individual students are perceived by staff.

It’s pretty boring as well as I had to fulfil various criteria in terms of content, but if you are interested in such matters….read from about the section on “Quality Management at X FE college” if you don’t know how such places work or perhaps from “Criticisms of TQM in Practice” if you do.




TQM in Education – In Whose Interest?


In this piece I will examine the rise and influence of Total Quality Management (TQM) in education and relating it to my own experiences as a Humanities and Applied Social Sciences lecturer at X FE college. This will include a section on some of the ways in which my own teaching is evaluated. I will also assert the view that TQM primarily prioritises the needs of corporatism and individualist, economic growth rather than those of more communitarian needs such as equality and social justice.


What is Quality?

Dictionary definitions of quality tend to be concerned with issues connected with the characteristics that something has and also with its degree of ‘excellence’. Common-sense or street definitions lean towards the idea that quality really means high quality, so that a ‘quality’ item may have characteristics which include being precision designed and built, luxurious, robust and desirable. In other words the everyday understanding is an absolute definition of quality – that the item or service has been produced or delivered to the highest achievable, unsurpassable standard. Such a definition is now considered elitist in education where a relative definition is employed. This has two aspects to it – firstly that teaching, learning (and the increasingly complex systems put into place to optimise the learning environment) should measure up to pre-set specifications so that they can be tested, and secondly that customer requirements should be met.

Quality in education has been adapted from its original application to the commercial, private sector (see origins of this later in “Who is the main customer?”). Its first form was that of Quality Control. This concept requires the use of quality experts to test and evaluate finished products so that a characteristic of this method is that measures ensuring quality are made after the event resulting in a lot of waste when those products which don’t measure up are discarded.

The expert definition of quality (i.e. as evaluated by the quality controller) was later superseded by a producer definition within the within the concept of Quality Assurance. Rather than measuring quality after the event, quality assurance demands that systems are put into place so that a quality product is ensured before production begins. Rather than reliance on individual expertise there is a much greater emphasis on teamwork. Team members consult in order to decide how to employ best practice before, during and after the event so that production faults can be eliminated and processes and protocols guide good practice.

The move towards team, rather than individual involvement in quality demands that much more staff training. Corporations have become increasingly involved with initiatives such as investment in people because of the significance given to the need for team members to be kept up to date with best practice by attending appropriate seminars and the like so that they can be proactive in discussions within their own team in ensuring quality. With this came an evolutionary shift towards what would be termed Total Quality Management (TQM).

From production forms of quality control through corporatist team working and quality assurance the move towards TQM coincided with an increasing focus within public sector bodies to compete for markets i.e. to operate as a business. This meant that schools and colleges for example compete (and select) for students, directing their marketing activities towards prospective students and their parents. The publication of league tables and the formation of bodies to promote quality have played a central role here (and one to which we will return later).

A key characteristic of TQM is the sovereign position of the customer. A customer based focus is supposed to ensure that the customer gets what s/he wants, how s/he wants it and when s/he wants it. The movement away from the expert quality controller to team is stronger still – to the extent that each individual team member takes responsibility for their own application of quality issues in their own area and receives ongoing training to supplement their own expertise. Individuals are expected to self-manage and old management styles are turned upside down (as in the upside-down pyramid model, see www.harvardmaint.com/pyramid.html ). Lecturers are relatively free to operate within their own area as they see fit as long is seen to be effective in monitoring. As well as evaluation and observations to moderate quality, teams meet with co-workers and management staff in quality circles to brainstorm ideas (along with feedback from student results, testing bodies and so on) with a strong emphasis on continual improvement.


Bodies Involved in Quality Improvement

The following is a brief trawl through some of the significant systems and bodies employed with a view to ensure quality within the TQM philosophy.


ISO 9001:2000

The ISO 9000 series has become the worlds most dominant quality standard permeating many areas in the public and private sectors and it is now part and parcel of total quality philosophy and methodology and serves as the mainstay of TQM. Its main principles are customer focus, leadership, involvement of people, the utilisation of processes and systems, continual improvement, objectivity through decisions based on testable results and mutually beneficial supplier relationships. ISO 9001:200 focuses on standards for the systems in operation rather than standards of achievement. So the emphasis is on trying to ensure the delivery of appropriate systems which will include effective monitoring and feedback mechanisms to promote continual improvement. www.qualitymanual.co.uk


Investors In People


A staff-focused system launched in the early 1990s with an emphasis on national standards of good practice in staff training and development. Again the orientation is towards a business philosophy in improving competitiveness and the achievement of business goals. External auditors regularly meet with organisations employing IIP to collate evidence for the effectiveness of all the organisation’s commitment, planning and systems of evaluation utilized to meet current and future needs of staff in terms of maximising business outcomes. During an audit issues will be discussed with staff representatives and feedback will be delivered to the organisation in terms of actions to be taken in order to effect the development of people skills which promote business goals. http://www.investorsinpeople.co.uk/Pages/Home.aspx



The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA)


The QCA controls standards in education and training in schools and colleges. It works in tandem with the DFES (the Department for Education and Skills) and their work together can be seen as having two main strands; firstly on promoting inclusion by (an increasingly individually focused) development people’s learning so that everyone has access to reaching a level of educational achievement which is as high as possible and secondly, promotion of a competitive economy. Increasingly a considerable level of educational attainment is considered as a prerequisite for Britain’s economic success to correspond to changes from a predominantly production/manufacturing economy to a service one likely to rely heavily on a more highly educated workforce. Increasingly the QCA have thus been more heavily involved with the development of national occupational standards of training and appraisal systems in the workplace outside of schools and colleges. http://www.qca.org.uk/aboutQCA.aspx



The Learning and Skills Council (LSC)

Founded in 2001 the LSC’s remit covers F.E. work-placed training and development, learning in the community and guidance for adults. It does this partly by fostering links with important partners employers and business development quangos such as business link. The LSC also works alongside the learning and skills development agency which is, in effect a resource base for education and training in the post 16 sector and supporting quality management in colleges and increasingly in recent years, within work places.


The role of the LSC is twofold in firstly planning for the (immediate and long-term) future of post 16 education channelling funding in such a way as is thought to be most productive in terms of what might be thought of as “meeting the needs of society” i.e. in providing for the economic growth of the country. A stated mission is that by 2010 young people and adults in the UK will have “the knowledge and skills matching the best in the world” www.lsc.gov.uk. The organisation works through a raft of related structures such as business and employment services, connexions and training organisations as well as F.E. and sixth form colleges.

Like so many other organisations involved in TQM the LSC uses strategies to improve the educational success of individuals and the wider economic success of the country. The primary impact in colleges is perhaps its role in providing, channelling and diverting funding. It is funding, and where it is targeted which largely determines what colleges do – which courses they put on or scrap. http://www.lsc.gov.uk/aboutus.cfm




The Office For Standards in Education (OFSTED)


OFSTED comes under the umbrella organisation the Adult Learning Inspectorate which is…

“…responsible for inspecting the quality of education and training for adults and young people in England, raising standards and reporting its findings back to both the Secretary of State for Education and the public” (http://www.lsc.gov.uk/Jargonbuster/Adult+Learning+Inspectorate+(ALI).htm)

OFTSTED itself is highly influential in the day to day activities and the long-term planning in schools and colleges. Founded in the 1990s their role is implementing and managing the school and college inspections. The reason for the enormity of its influence is this: If educational establishments are now operating in effect as businesses, then it is OFSED (along with results data and league-table rankings) which largely dictate how successful or otherwise an educational establishment is with an important bearing on activities, funding and even (e.g. in the case of ‘failing schools’) on the continuation of individual schools and colleges. A huge effect in terms of resources and staff-hours goes into meeting criteria used to measure the effectiveness of quality systems in place, how they are exorcised and what actually occurs in the classroom. http://www.ofsted.gov.uk.







Life Long Learning UK (LLUK)


LLUK has a major influence on the day to day activities of individual lecturers because it is largely responsible for setting the professional standards (formally FENTO standards) required of F.E. teachers. The standards relate to seven key areas which any proficient lecturer should demonstrate (Reece and Wlaker, 2003, Appx 1.): Assessing learner needs, planning and preparation of teaching, managing the learning process, providing support, assessing learner needs and planning future practice in light of self evaluation and reflection. The development and promotion of standards is a key way in which quality assurance is maintained. One of the outcomes on recent years is in the obligation of all F.E. teachers to have undertaken a teaching qualification endorsed by LLUK/FENTO. http://www.lifelonglearninguk.org



Quality Management at X FE college


The college has an array of quality systems certified to ISO90001:2000 maintained and revised by the business manager. The three overriding concerns in terms of quality measurement are retention (has the student stayed on the course?), achievement (what were her/his final grades?) and value added (how did student results compare with predicted results based on national findings?). Each student is allocated a minimum projected grade at the start of the year and progress is monitored by teams of teaching and managerial staff. Courses are analysed by teams and a review of each course is undertaken at the end of each term, special attention being given to underperforming courses. In addition external moderation of courses takes place from time to time (e.g. with a non-college representative of a relevant examination body). Course meetings are attended by teachers, managers and student representatives, feedback is analysed and action plans formulated to ensure continuing improvement.

Every year student (and staff) satisfaction surveys are carried out, results analysed and appropriate resultant action taken. Recently X FE college has also started to instigate focus groups with classes with a view to getting more qualitative data on student learning experiences.

All teaching staff are involved in regular classroom observations which may include peer observations and once per year an observation focussing on different or innovative forms of delivery. Staff are obliged to be attentive to the need to constantly develop and update their skills by attending appropriate meetings and seminars (e.g. on new legislation or on good practice). Teachers keep a continuing professional development file to log their teaching qualifications, reflections and plans for future development. Lecturers on the college payroll are required to spend 5 days in industrial experience outside the college for every 2 year period. Staff appraisals are devised to identify any issues needs and development requirements of individual teachers on the college payroll.

Computer databases and programmes are key to the colleges data analysis, the tracking of student progress (including student issues identified and targets set), course reviews, record keeping and so on as well as a comprehensive reference store for college policies and significant national policies (e.g. every child matters, Data Protection etc).

Quality audits are undertaken from time to time in curriculum or functional areas as well as college-wide audits. These are very important as failure to correct a single non-compliance identified in the event of an external assessment would result in the colleges removal of its certification to ISO9001.




Criticisms of TQM in Practice

In evaluating TQM we might start by suggesting generally that any system which understands and measures success in terms mainly of statistical data on retention, student results and value added is bound to be reductionist to an extent. To boil down all the experiences and mental processes that go into a classroom or school/college environment to sets of numerical data is going to miss out an awful lot of qualitative information. That said TQM emphasises an approach which looks at the processes involved not just final outcomes and there is a move to give increasing attention to the student experience or ‘voice’ (see appendix A).

At X FE college student progress is monitored using a ‘student tracker’ computer program as well as through regular team meetings and resultant reviews of student progress and issues. Student issues are open to differing interpretation and misinterpretation however and depends partly on things such as the kind of communication which goes on between staff and students and/or their parents/guardians. For example while one student who is regularly missing deadlines and has poor attendance may be labelled as ‘lazy’ or ‘unmotivated’, another in the same situation may be viewed as managing very well in difficult home/private circumstances (i.e. it might depend on the students skill in communicating/providing evidence for problems outside their academic life). While words such as ‘lazy’ are deemed too subjective for use in reports and data records, they are still used in discussions with students in meetings and this affects how such reports are written and how the students are regarded by staff.

Similarly, although focus groups are giving a more qualitative insight into the experience of students and how well the college is meeting their needs, the findings are inevitably refracted through the attitudes and views (and biases) of teachers. Team meetings to discuss focus group findings which I have been involved with have tended to look at each point made by the students in turn and decide firstly whether or not it is a valid point. It could be said that this is where teacher professionalism comes in but nevertheless a certain amount of bias is bound to affect on the level of validity assigned to each point and how they are acted upon.

Student surveys are largely quantitative in nature and reveal little insight into students feelings about their courses but provide useful data and are arguably counterbalanced by the focus groups mentioned above.

Observations organised by the college not only allow teachers to develop their skills but also ensures that come an OFSTED inspection, staff should be adequately rehearsed to sail through an official observation. Graded or informal observations are very stressful for teachers and are limited by tight criteria which may restrict the scope of what a lesson may consist of and how it develops but the powers that be seem to be more aware of the stress involved as OFSTED, for example are introducing lighter touch observational methods in many instances. I can also say that observations do seem to become less stressful the more of them you experience! I have found peer observations particularly useful in developing ideas to bring to my own sessions.

Staff appraisals do not apply to agency staff such as myself, who may be largely left in the dark as to how the college views their progress, relying solely on informal feedback from colleagues (apart from the classroom observations).

The myriad of systems employed to deal with data is dominated by computerised systems. Some of these are more user-friendly than others. I find the ‘student tracker’ system (discussed earlier) particularly good as it easily allows access to any issues of individual learners, what agreements they have come to and update the files as necessary. On the other hand I have spent long periods looking for some document or other on the college Staff Information System and my heart sinks when I’m told “it’s on CIS”! Teaching staff (as with other public sector workers who operate business-orientated TQM systems now have to deal with enormous amounts of paperwork in order for the systems to work efficiently) all the ‘i’s must be dotted and ‘t’s crossed and this takes a lot of time and personal resources away from teaching itself.




In Whose Interest is TQM?


What makes a good college? One answer could be a college which looks to the individual needs of the students and helps them to achieve what they want in order to progress happily/successfully on to the next stage of their lives. Another possible answer is one which employs effective number crunching tools in order to produce desirable data outcomes which translate as ‘good results’ and push it high into the league tables and earn higher status (and economic rewards) for the institution and its staff. The two answers are not necessarily produced by the same thing. Two questions we might ask regarding this are to what extent does the data (results) reflect reality? And which customer in modern education, is given most importance?



How Valid is the Data?

The data systems employed are complex and a detailed analysis is beyond the scope of this piece. However certain issues are clear. Firstly a college can obtain good results by selecting students who achieved well at school in the first place. The results thereby being largely a reflection of the selection procedure rather than in-house education, though a growing emphasis on value added is likely to alleviate this problem to some extent. Another issue involves the motivations (and biases) at work in how data is produced. It is well known that in business ‘creative accounting’ is often used to reduce overheads such as tax (e.g. a night-out which put down as a business expense). If a colleges funding, prestige (and the pay levels of its staff) is directly influenced by its results (i.e. attendance, achievement and value added data) then it makes sense that an ambitious college must employ clever accountants. Similarly the success of individual teaching staff is dependant on their results so teachers are also under pressure to cook the books to some extent. I know that for instance on some struggling courses (i.e. ones which may be pulled, possibly putting some staff out of work if results don’t improve), teachers are sometimes under pressure to ensure that all the remaining students pass. The resultant marking may not then be as objective as in other circumstances! I also know of several cases where teachers have understandably made sure that students complete necessary tutorial forms even when the students have not actually done the work which these forms represent. In this way staff and students knowingly play the game, colluding with each other in order to avoid ‘unnecessary’ paperwork and extra hoops to jump through (in my experience A level tutorial workload is regarded with cynicism by many staff and students alike). Arguably the main role of data produced in general is in being seen to do the right thing rather than actually doing it.



Who is the main customer?


TQM demands customer sovereignty but as Bottery (2003) points out, it is not clear “just who in education is the customer? student? parent? local community? business? Government?” etc.

As a teacher my main concern is the students as my main day to day activities revolve around helping them with their assignments and exam preparation. However this is not to say that this is the case for all teachers – for more ambitious teachers their status in the college/education system may be their prime concern.

We have to go back to the 1980s, Thatcher and the New Right to look at the origin of the perceived need to instil a business ethos in the public sector. The Right saw the public sector as being inefficient, unresponsive and run by “self-serving professionals” (ibid:62). At the same time “…public sector agendas concerned with questions of inequality were downplayed or even dropped” (ibid). The Thatcher years saw corporate/consumer versions of quality dominate and massive levels of inequality in Britain (e.g. mass unemployment – see Pierson, 1998). Successive (even Labour) governments have continued many Thatcherite themes and favoured corporate managerialism over equality Notwithstanding a raft of equal rights legislation and policies on things like the minimum wage, inequality remains an enormous problem. It could even be argued that a kind of corporate/capitalist hegemony imbues staff, learners and parents that in playing the game, it is the rules of the business ethic which must be adhered to and thus the economic ‘needs’ of the country in general and the profit margins of individual businesses.


Botters (2003) suggests that in embossing managerialism/corporatism, some important public sector values such as equality, justice and community have either been dropped or subsumed by private, managerialist values which promote the efforts of the self-interested individual over the needs of the many. For example it is clear in my short experience of teaching that articulate parents with the time and ability to arrange persuasive, skilfully played out meetings (so the middle classes have an important advantage) and adept as at getting their ‘problem’ son or daughter back on the course or given extra attention - from empathising middle class staff.

The idea of the student or parent as a customer assumes consumer choice (e.g. which they can exorcise by choosing a ‘better’ college). In reality students are often likely to go to their nearest college (and again, the middle classes are more likely to move area based on performance leagues). Even staff are reluctant to accept learners from too far away as they may end up dropping out (and spoiling the stats).

Recently myself and colleagues had the upsetting task of seeing some students thrown off a course primarily on their failure to meet attendance requirements (their motivation and written work had improved dramatically, a point which teaching staff urged on management). The said students were on a care course and the teachers involved saw them as having the right personal qualities to make excellent carers. Students seem more likely to ‘succeed’ if they are adept at playing the game and effectively producing appropriate documentary evidence for absences and delayed work (in a minor reflection of corporate concerns with producing effective documentary data), something which again ‘pushy parents’ and confident students are more proficient at.

Although students are given at least a nominal status of being the main customer (e.g. in college mission statements), I would argue that a modern college’s paramount concern is in producing ‘successful’ data which may be at odds with student experiences on the ground and that this is primarily for individualist, economic benefits. The divide between rich and poor evidently remains a serious issue in education (as in the UK) along with lack of social mobility. In spite of reams of policy on equality and diversity TQM appears to be doing little to hinder this gap and may even exacerbate it by favouring those with middle class orientations and promoting a managerial bias. Furthermore I would go on to suggest that education has not only become a by-product of the dominant business ethic but that it has become one of the systems for perpetuating and perhaps accelerating a business/managerial/corporate culture (see Gramsci, 1971 for the concept of a capitalist hegemony). As Tuckmann (1995) argues, TQM internalises the values and concepts of the market into every relationship so that even nominally liberalist egalitarian concepts like ‘empowerment’ and ‘participation’ are redefined within managerially defined notions of the concepts (e.g. someone is empowered…within in the allocation of business agendas).

The emphasis on the need for education to fulfil the economic needs of the country may be laudable but in ignoring communitarian needs it is also extremely blinkered. In a context of a globalised world in which national inequalities are wide and international ones extreme (and likely to be exacerbated by environmental changes) the reaffirment of more communitarian values in education is surely paramount, rather than a system primed mainly towards short-term economic ‘needs’ of the country.

Appendix Index




Appendix A: Representing the Learner Voice





Appendix B: Lesson Plan Pro-Forma





Appendix C: Example of Focus Group Student Feedback




Appendix C: Simple Survey on Classroom Activities
Websites Used
(All checked/accessed on 10/08/07)



http://www.harvardmaint.com/pyramid.html



http://www.qualitymanual.co.uk


http://www.investorsinpeople.co.uk/Pages/Home.aspx



http://www.qca.org.uk/aboutQCA.aspx



http://www.lsc.gov.uk/aboutus.cfm



http://www.ofsted.gov.uk.