A STUDY OF QUALITY MANAGEMENT PRACTICES AT TEACHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS IN PAKISTAN

Abstract

This study was designed to explore the quality management practices at the teacher education institutions in Pakistan. The study was delimited to the Departments of Education/ Institutes of Education and Research of public sector universities in Pakistan. All the teachers including heads of the Departments/Institutes of Education at public universities of Pakistan formed the population of the study. Since the number of teacher educators was limited, all the population was taken as sample for questionnaire survey. The required data was collected by administering two questionnaires i.e. Teachers’ Questionnaire and Experts’ Questionnaire, and conducting interviews of QEC heads and HODs. Teachers’ Questionnaire, which contained two scales, was meant for investigating the perceptions of teacher educators of 19 public universities about current practices of quality management in their respective institutions and identifying the important components of quality in teacher education. The Quality Management Practices Scale (QMPS) consisted of 75 statements on five-point Liker scale relating to nine subscales: top management commitment, leadership, human resource management, benchmarking, processes, stakeholder focus, physical and academic resources, partnership and linkages, and information and analysis. In the Quality Management Components Scale (QMCS), teacher educators were requested to identify on four-point scale the relative importance of 30 items for managing quality at teacher education departments/institutes of public universities. The return rate of Teachers’ Questionnaire was 70.72%. The Cronbach Alpha values for the QMP Scale and QMC Scale were 0.859 and 0.885 respectively, which showed high reliability of the scales. The Experts’ Questionnaire was used for validation of the Draft Quality Management Model developed by the researcher. In this questionnaire, experts werexvii asked five open ended questions pertaining to following aspects of the proposed model: simplicity and comprehensiveness, viability, deficiency, relevance with Pakistani context, and its attraction for the relevant organizations. The return rate of Experts’ Questionnaire was 63.33%. The Interview Schedule included five open- ended questions covering following aspects: use of quality assurance/ quality management model, implementation of the HEC guidelines for quality assurance, major initiatives taken for quality improvement, effectiveness of quality assurance initiatives, and major problems affecting quality of academic programmes. The data collected through Teachers’ Questionnaire was analyzed by using frequency distribution, calculating mean response scores and applying chi-square test, whereas information collected through interviews and experts’ questionnaire were analyzed qualitatively. It was concluded that low to moderate level quality management practices existed at teacher education institutions included in the study. A sizable number of teacher educators were not satisfied with the present state of quality management at their institutions. Comparatively, the most favourable views were given from the respondents about the subscale “human resource management” whereas teachers were least satisfied with the “benchmarking” aspect of quality management at their institutions. There was no significant difference between the perceptions of male and female teachers for majority items of the QMP Scale. On various aspects of quality management, old institutions appeared to be slightly stronger than newly established teacher training organizations, and other teacher education institutions were relatively better as compared to University of Education. Out of 30 elements rated by teachers, the components that received ‘most important’ rating by the majority of respondents included “top management commitment to quality”, “establishing academicxviii standards/ performance indicators”, “teachers' satisfaction with working conditions”, “teachers' professional development”, and “long-term planning”. The findings of interviews of QEC heads and HODs revealed that universities including Departments of Education/ IERs were following Quality Assurance Framework suggested by the Higher Education Commission. Major initiatives taken by Education Departments/ IERs included outlining the missions and visions of the departments and the academic programmes; following admission criteria suggested by HEC; revision of curricula of teacher education programmes; obtaining feedback from the important stakeholders about the effectiveness of teaching and academic courses; self-assessment of academic programmes; documentation of self-assessment results; analysis of self- assessment data; and preparation for accrediting teacher education programmes. For implementing and improving the quality related initiatives, it was suggested that a Quality Steering Committee should be constituted at all the teacher education institutions of public universities. It was further recommended that the proposed quality management model (attached in Appendix VI) may be implemented by the university Departments of Education/ IERs to improve quality of academic programmes and institutional management.