Quality and Higher Education

2.7.1. Students as Customers

The idea of students as 'customers' at institutions of higher learning evokes intense controversy, but it is usually understood simplistically. The word customer is derived from the Latin 'consuescere' meaning 'to become acquainted with'. In marketplaces of the Renaissance it suggested a bond founded on familiarity and trust. Early universities were located near marketplaces, and shared some of their vibrant atmosphere. Today, as well, there is no reason why the relationship between a customer and provider need be either temporary or superficial. New technologies may help to render the relationship between an institution and its students more lasting and more personal. The exchange of money for goods and services makes a student a customer (Sadler, 2007).

It is noticeable in the United Kingdom that, as students in higher education are expected to pay an increasing share of the costs of their tuition, so there is an increasing tendency to refer to students as customers. Responses to this terminology tend to be polarised. Either it is self-evident that people who pay for a service are customers and should be treated as such, or it is self-evident that education is intrinsically 'different' and that the use of marketplace metaphors can do nothing but harm to the educational process (Eagle and Brennan, 2007).

The idea that students might be treated as customers triggers academics' antipathy, which in turn can lead to managerial irritation and political frustration. There are different discourses which barely overlap as their protagonists speak past one another (Brown, 2004). These differences can be reconciled by re-conceiving the relationship between the university and the student. Brown (2004) analyses the problems inherent in thinking of students as customers, suggests a multidimensional approach to understanding student roles, and considers what part markets can play in governing and managing higher education systems.

In the most literal sense, the student may or may not be a customer. Perhaps the student is paying for an education, but often the parent, the state or a foundation may be footing the bill. In the latter cases, perhaps the parent, state or foundation is really the customer (Sadler, 2007). If one individual student is not the customer, do you treat him/her differently from the students that are? Sadler (2007) claims that we need

not trouble ourselves too much about such questions, because the designation of students as customers is generally used more as a metaphor than as a literal description.

The debate is polarised, with advocates regarding it as self-evident that students are customers and should be treated as such, while critics regard it as self-evident that the incursion of the customer concept into higher education degrades educational standards and damages educator/student relationships. Researchers should investigate whether the adoption of the terminology, systems and processes of the 'student-as-customer' leads to a degradation or improvement of the quality of education and level of service delivered to higher education students (Eagle and Brennan, 2007).

2.7.2. Five Concepts of Quality

Scott (1994) further developed the argument of Westerheijden et al. (1994) concerning the multiplicity of factors which impact on quality, pointing out that the very factors that made quality a key political concern in higher education have also made it almost impossible to agree on a common definition. Scott outlined the following five concepts of quality:

Quality as Excellence

This is a perspective of quality through a relatively fixed hierarchy of academic merits. According to Scott, this perspective is the most common in higher education.

Scott highlighted a number of drawbacks inherent in this definition. First, it regards the definition of quality as unproblematic, and this “assumption [is] difficult to sustain in a mass system” (Scott, 1994, p. 64). Second, “its delivery mechanism, peer review, assumes a professional collegiality as well as shared intellectual values, [however] neither of [them]…can be taken for granted in an increasingly competitive and market-oriented system” (Scott, 1994, p. 64).

Quality as Audit

This approach to quality focuses on “the procedures used by universities to safeguard and maintain quality” (Scott, 1994, p. 64). But the approach is modelled on the

“closed” analytical style employed in the corporate world, and it “has proved to be

difficult to reconcile with the open interpretative ethos of universities” (Scott, 1994, p. 65).

Quality as Outcomes

Scott pointed out that this approach fails to relate outputs to inputs, and thus it

“neglects issues of ‘value added’, [which are] an important measure of higher education’s effectiveness” (Scott, 1994, p. 65). According to Scott, what is also important to consider is that some outcomes, particularly in the case of higher education, “only become clear long after undergraduates have left higher education, which undermines the usefulness of this approach in policy and managerial terms”

(Scott, 1994, p. 65).

Quality as Mission

This interpretation of quality emphasises the need to judge quality in the context of mission. For example, “A small college should not be judged by the same standards as a large comprehensive university or a research university” (Scott, 1994, p. 65).

This approach to quality has been referred to as “fitness for purpose”, and it was first employed around the mid-1980s, to discourage “policy makers from judging the former polytechnics by inappropriate criteria designed with traditional universities in mind” (Scott, 1994, pp. 65-66).

Quality as Culture

Another approach to quality emphasises “the need to build a ‘quality culture’ that permeates the whole institution rather than devising discrete standards to judge the quality of each individual operation” (Scott, 1994, p. 66).

Scott further suggests that there are a number of other different models of quality, and that these other concepts of quality can be described in terms of a series of spectra – between “…informal and formal modes…professionally-oriented (top-down) and those that are market driven (bottom-up), between systems designed to monitor process and those that measure substantial outcomes” (Scott, 1994, p. 67). He also highlights the fact that these various models are not “mutually exclusive” and that they can be “mixed-and-matched”.

2.7.3. Saudi & British Position regarding Quality

Although Saudi Arabia has one of the fasting growing education systems in the Middle East, there has been very little or no research done regarding the quality of education in this country. Increasingly, the rationale for quality development has been driven by funding mechanisms, accreditation tests, keeping pace with international practice, and national audits (Harvey, 2005; Lomas, 2007). Saudi Arabia has commenced a number of major developmental projects that seek to fill the gap between its higher education system and other more advanced systems around the world.

The researcher has chosen to investigate the higher education system of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as a culturally different educational system, distinct from the English higher education system, and more broadly from the Anglo-Saxon higher education tradition. In brief, two main reasons for choosing Saudi Arabia and Britain as contexts for this research are reasonably good access to potential participants in these countries as well as the unique position of Saudi and the UK in the East and the West, respectively.

In addition to the fact that the author has been involved with higher education both in Saudi and in the UK, it can be argued that it is the unique position of Saudi Arabia in the Middle East between Asia and Africa, and thus its unique political and social history, that have had an impact on the specific development of the Saudi higher education system and the Saudi educational system overall. The researcher is Saudi, and has been working in the education sector, so it is reasonable to contribute to the education system in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in this research. It is an acceptable fact that research cannot be conducted if an investigator does not have access to potential participants or participants do not like to share their opinion with a researcher. Thus, due to access to Saudi academics, this country becomes an ideal choice for research.

Looking at British higher education, Green (1994) also referred to the fact that concern for quality and standards was not new in the British higher education context.

The debate has become more "visible" since the 1980s, because it became more externalised and has grown in intensity (Green, 1994). Green also highlighted the multi-dimensionality of quality. She suggests that quality is an elusive term, and that:

“We all have an instinctive understanding of what it means but it is difficult to

articulate” (Green, 1994, p. 12). She also argues that quality is “a value-laden term:

it is subjectively associated with what is good and worthwhile” (Green, 1994, p. 12).

Further, on defining the concept of quality, Harvey, Green and Burrows (1993) have indicated that there are a number of ways of viewing quality. They outline six different notions of quality. The first notion relates to what they call the traditional concept of quality. This concept associates quality with an idea of exceptionally high standards. The second notion perceives quality in terms of consistency. “It focuses on process and sets a specification that it aims to meet” (Harvey et al., 1993, p. 144). It relates to the concept of zero defects. Their third approach to quality is that of fitness for purpose, where quality is judged “in terms of the extent to which a product or service meets its stated purpose” (Harvey et al., 1993, p. 144). The fourth concept of quality is that of value for money, and thus concerns accountability. It relates to the increasing pressures in the British public sector, including education, to be accountable to the public, funders and others. They also acknowledge that this trend is spreading all over Europe. The fifth notion of quality perceives it as a transformative process, an ongoing transformation of the participants. Another concept of quality is a pragmatic approach, where it is defined in terms of a range of qualities. This concept recognises the fact that an institution may be of high quality in relation to one factor but of low quality in relation to another aspect.

Harvey, Green and Burrows (1993) further highlight that quality is “stakeholder”

relative, and the best that can be achieved in that sense “is to define, as clearly as possible, the criteria used by each interest group when judging quality…” (Harvey et al., 1993, p. 144).

To sum up, the number of diverse definitions of quality point to the fact that, particularly in the field of higher education, quality has always been a contested concept and issue. This has been largely due to its multi-dimensionality and thus complexity.