- Following existing current standards of practice – this is followed within the college through monitoring teaching and statistics of the course in the form of retention, achievement, course audit etc.
- Searching for higher and better standard ways of working – this is adhered to through continuous evaluation and improvements of the courses being implemented by the course team.
The constant encouragement for divisions and courses to work in teams, enable them to come up with ideas and solutions for improvement and progression. Focus on customer wants and expectations as regards to improving the services and courses on offer are evaluated through SPOC’s6 (where students get a say as to how the course and college work for them), local demands and business needs.
Quality Models
The Charter mark
“Charter Mark is a major part of the Government’s drive to modernise public services. It is unique amongst quality schemes because your organisation is judged on its results – the service the customer actually receives. It shows that you put customers first. It demonstrates to people – both your customers and people in other organisations – just how high standards in the public service can be.”
(http://www.chartemark.gov.uk)
The charter mark is a quality improvement scheme focusing on customer service. It encourages organisations to strive for excellence and continuous improvement. In order to receive the charter mark award applicants must meet the ten charter standards (see appendix 1).
The Charter mark is one of the quality models that the ? College is looking to implement in addition to it already existing quality framework. A lot of the standard indicators for this model are already in place within the college system.
Standard one The colleges mission statement sets what the aims of the college are as well as the business plans, ensuring that clients recognise the standards of service they can expect. Results regarding course audits are published and also available on the intranet. Following the new inspection regime of OFSTED and ALI7 the inspection reports will again be published and available to be viewed on the official government website as well as the league tables.
Standard Two Full information regarding courses and costs are available in the form of course leaflets, advice evenings and interviews. This standard would need extra monitoring to ensure and provide documentation to prospective clients regarding performance as although information is available on achievement most clients do not know this.
Standard Three This is a weakness of the college at the moment as each department seems to work independently, but with new initiatives in place it is one that could be worked upon in the future.
Standard Four Through the development of flexible learning, open learning and satellite centres this standard has already been achieved within the college. What may need to be developed is the availability of sitting the exam only.
Standard Five Equal Opportunity policy and appeals policy work towards this standard. Within the college great emphasis is placed upon integration of students with special learning needs. Additional support is available through the learning needs unit and support workers to ensure this are a success. Also the college has encouraged all staff to attend and achieve the Basic Skills Practitioners award and Key skills developing their understanding of the needs of their students.
Standard Six A complaint procedure is in place within the college and is covered within the induction process. This is done at the beginning of a course. The problem with this is that students tend to forget was they have been told. Also some do not like to follow the procedure as the first port of call is sometimes to the tutor and this may be the person that the complaint is about. This would need to be improved to ensure that this standard was met in order to have a bearing on quality of the course and students learning.
Standard Seven Through government funding, ILT champions and the use of the Internet and Intranet, flexible provision and generic resources are being produced to provide value for money. This is another standard that the college is continuously working on.
Standard Eight Evidence for this standard can be gained through work towards achieving standard seven..
Standard Nine The College has already set up links with other organisation to ensure a better delivery and service. This has been achieved through the merger with schools in response to 6th form facilities, joint ventures through community provision with other colleges and the new government initiatives for 14 – 19 year olds, which starts in the new academic year of 2002.
Standard Ten Evidence for this standard can be gained through college data, benchmarks, end of course audit and questionnaires in the form of SPOC’s6, EPOC’s13 and other auditable documentation.
It would be easy for the college to work toward achieving the Charter mark as a lot of the systems they have in place now would satisfy most of the stated requirements. The only drawback would be time constraints and additional work that may be required to provide evidence required. The college already has its own quality procedures in place that have been adapted from the EFQM9 framework, what needs to be understood are the benefits from additional quality models and how this would help the college.
The benefits of the Charter Mark are: -
- Free audit – feedback from an assessor
- Benchmarking – measurements against the best public services
- Recognition and positive publicity – national and local
- Motivation and team building - boosts moral
EFQM9 Excellence Model
“The EFQM Excellence Model is a non-prescriptive framework based on nine criteria Five of these are ‘Enablers’ and four are ‘Results’. The ‘Enabler’ criteria cover what an organisation does. The ‘Results’ are caused by ‘Enablers’ and feedback from ‘Results help to improve ‘Enablers’.”
(http://www.efqm.org)
Enablers 50% Results 50%
INNOVATION AND LEARNING
(Cabinet Office, 2001, Pg11)
The Enablers criteria is concerned with how the organisation conducts itself, how it manages its staff and resources, how it plans its strategy and how it reviews and monitors key processes.
Organisations Results are what it achieves; this includes the level of satisfaction in the organisation’s employees and customers, its impact on the wider community and key performance indicators.
The benefits of the model are self assessment through:
- Identification of strengths and areas for improvement
- Identification of priority areas to address
- Year-on-year assessment of performance against a widely recognised model
- Provides a framework which makes sense of all quality and improvement activities
- Generates fresh motivation for improvement
- Gives an insight into world class practice
- Enables comparison with a wide range of other organisations.
The ? Colleges Quality Assurance Procedures have been based upon this model. The Procedures look and all the “Enablers”, the mission statement the responsibilities of the leadership, people involved, Policies and their strategy, Partnerships and resources and the processes in place to monitor this. Another impact on the provisions of the college are the results that are monitored fully through data via the college Management system (MIS) and then mapped against national benchmarks, thus ensuring that the college is maintaining a high standard. Where requirement have not been achieved then this is investigated and analysed in the form of the course co-ordinations having to explain why the standards have not been achieved.
All the above are looked at within the ? College Quality Assurance Procedures, which have been outlined in appendix 2. These policies look at how the organisation conducts it’s self, how it manages staff and resources, how it plans strategies and how it reviews and monitors key processes. It also outlines procedures regarding the monitoring of the organisations results, such as its achievements, including the level of satisfaction in the organisation’s employees and customers, its impact on the wider community and key performance indicators.
ISO10 9000
“ISO 9000 is a tool to help organisations ensure that their processes are managed to enable them to meet customers’ needs and expectations and any related statutory and regulatory requirements.”
(Cabinet Office, 2001, Pg18)
ISO10 is a worldwide federation of national standards bodies from about 140 countries. It is a non-governmental organisation established in 1947. The mission is to promote the development of standardisation and related activities in the world with a view to facilitating exchange of goods and services. ISO10 was derived from the Greek isos meaning, “equal”. ISO10 was established as industries sensed the need to agree on world standards to help rationalise trading processes.
“The main reasons for ISO10 are:
- Worldwide progress in trade liberalisation
- Interpenetration of sectors
- Worldwide communication systems
- Global standards for emerging technologies
- Developing countries
The aim is to facilitate trade, exchange and technology transfer through:-
- Enhanced product quality and reliability at a reasonable price
- Improved health, safety and environmental protection, and reduction of waste
- Greater compatibility and interoperability of goods and services
- Simplification for improved usability
- Reduction in the number of models, and thus reduction in costs
- Increased distribution efficiency and ease of maintenance”
(http://www.iso.ch/iso/en/aboutiso/introduction/whyneeded.html)
The above three models are the main quality systems in place today. Colleges have been able to base their main framework for their individual system and quality procedures ensuring that best practice has been adopted for the individual institution.
Alongside quality models, organisations also adopt other forms of working towards ensuring quality for clients and staff. The most common one of these are IIP11.
Investors in People Award
“Investors in People is a national Standard which sets a level of good practice for improving an organisation’s performance through its people”
(Cabinet Office, 2001, Pg16)
Investors in People arose from repeated reports demonstrating that Britain’s workforce held fewer qualifications and increasing skill gaps were being noticed.
The key Players in this development were:-
- The National Training Task Force
- The CBI
- The Department of Employment
(Taylor & Thackwray, 1996, Pg8)
After lots of research and investigation IIP11 was launched in 1990’s under the guidance of the local TEC’s 12.
In order for an organisation to achieve the IIP11 award they have to provide evidence that they are achieving the four principles and 12 indicators (see appendix 3). The 1999 Green Paper, Teachers: meeting the challenge of change outlined the Governments commitment to encourage more schools to become Investors in People. The aim of this initiative was to increase schools performances and improve the sharing of good practice.
The ? College have been involved with Investors in People for sometime now and have just undergone re-assessment. This is carried out every three years to ensure that the organisation is still achieving and meeting all the indicators.
Evidence that the college has produced and developed in order for them to achieve the IIP11 award is:-
It is obvious to see that IIP11 is already partly in place with other quality assurance procedures and the main form of evidencing the required indicators are through the following methods: -
- Business Planning
-
ACR5
-
OTL4
- Staff Development Form
- Appraisal
- Mentoring
- Team meeting
- Quality Control process
- Quality Assurance procedures
Etc.
Through IIP11 the commitment of the college is clear by ensuring commitment of both the organisation and its staff. A clear mission and backing from management is outlined within the mission of the institution and from this then the objectives can be devised to ensure success. This should then be cascaded down to each of the individual departments ensuring management have full perception of how the objective involve them and the staff and their importance within the development cycle.
Other aspect to take into consideration is the value of having for example IIP11. In the early nineties to gain IIP would have shown the commitment to staff and the ethos and culture of the organisation. Now so may companies have achieved accreditation that its value could be questioned. Has the standard shift from a prestigious award to the felling of being embedded, if that is the case how much quality is their now within it? This is something that would need to be looked at to gain the full worth of accreditation.
Conclusion
Although this paper has looked at the main model in place and procedures followed within the ? College there are more practices that need to be investigated and evidenced on how they fit within the quality assurance procedures. Some of these are the quality audit, which take place both internally and externally.
Colleges have now moved into the Common Inspection Framework which will involve OFSTED14 and ALI7 auditing the provision of courses, as well as looking at area inspections. To help staff understand the new requirements, full staff training and development has been implemented. What is not fully know is the effect this type of audit could have on the financial side of the college and its value for money status in regards to other organisations
The main purposes and principles of the common inspection framework are to: -
- Give an independent public account of the quality of education and training, the standards achieved and the efficiency with which resources are managed
- Help bring about improvement by identifying strengths and weaknesses and highlighting good practice
- Keep the Secretary of State, LSC and the Employment Service informed about the quality and standards of education and training
- Promote a culture of self-assessment among providers, leading to continuous improvement and maintenance of very high quality and standards.
(government, 2001, Pg3)
Internal audits are carried out through OTL4, ACR5, Internal Verification, External Verification, SPOC’s6, EPOC’s13 etc. All of these are important when working towards quality assurance and it is also important that staff understand that it is the job of all employed by the organisation to ensure these procedures are followed.
Other codes of practice are also involved with quality for courses such as GNVQ and NVQ procedures which are normally governed by QCA and the common accord, which ensure standardisation covering:-
- Centre approval procedures
- Assessment and awarding processes
- Arraignments for special needs requirements
- Malpractice
- Enquiries and appeals
Different publications regarding standards and codes of practices are available from the QCA website.
It is felt that by achieving a recognised quality accreditation, this would enhance the organisations position within the marketplace as prospective customers assume that the service and goods supplied are of quality. In some cases this could be argued against as systems can be put into, place but if they are not followed and adhered to by all, then that is when quality fails. Therefore it is important that the college have developed an “Audit Plan” in order to ensure that these procedures are adhered to and followed at all times.
On occasions mistakes and errors are made and this is where improvement can be implemented to ensure reoccurrences do not take place. It is important to ensure that all staff is made aware of quality procedures as sometimes these are overlooked by members of staff who are just casual or part-time. A disadvantage of the college is that most of its staff’s development, especially regarding training is done during the day when most part-time or bank staff are unable to attend. If the college is to achieve TQM8 then this is one issue which will need to be looked at and addressed.
1 Further Education Funding Council
2 Learning Skills Council
3 British Standards
4 Observation Teaching and Learning
5 Annual Course Report
6 Students Perception on College
7 Adult Learning Inspectorates
8 Total Quality Management
9 European Foundation for Quality Management
10 International Organisation for Standardisation
11 Investors in People
12 Training Enterprise Council
13 Employees Perception of College
14 Office for Standards in Education