Total quality management in higher education a case of international university vietnam national university HCMC

TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT IN HIGHER EDUCATION – A CASE OF INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY – VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HCMC In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the Degree of MASTER

TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT IN HIGHER EDUCATION – A CASE OF INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY – VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HCMC

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the Degree of

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT IN HIGHER EDUCATION – A CASE OF INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY – VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HCMC

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the Degree of

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

In Finance

By Ms: Nguyen Ho Thanh Tam ID: MBA02030 International University - Vietnam National University HCMC

September 2013 Under the guidance and approval of the committee, and approved by all its members, this thesis has been accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree

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Acknowledge

To complete this thesis, I have been benefited from many people First of all, I would like to express my deepest acknowledge to my advisor, Assoc Prof Ho Thanh Phong for being my teacher, my advisor and guiding me through this research with valuable advices and recommendations Moreover, he teaches me not only to finish this thesis but also

to know method of applying the content to my current career

I would like to express my sincere appreciation to Dr Nguyen Van Chung – Vice Rector of International University, Dr Phan Viet Hoang – visiting lecturer of School of Computer science & Engineering, my colleagues at Office of Academic affairs, Office of Human Resource Management, and Quality Assurance Center helping me to design questionnaires and be eager to send information for my research

My thanks also go to respondents of the surveys who shared their busy time to answer my questionnaires, and to my friends, Nguyen Ngoc Dieu Thi, Ho Huu Tien, and

Le Duc Phuc for their helps

To my family, I wish to express all my loving thanks to my dad, sister, and younger brother to love and encourage me whenever I feel tired, to my died mother for all her love to me

Finally, I would like to give many thanks to many people cared for me that listing names is not enough

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Plagiarism Statements

I would like to declare that, apart from the acknowledged references, this thesis either does not use language, ideas, or other original material from anyone; or has not been previously submitted to any other educational and research programs or institutions I fully understand that any writings in this thesis contradicted to the above statement will automatically lead to the rejection from the MBA program at the International University – Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City

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Copyright Statement

This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognize that its copyright rests with its author and that no quotation from the thesis and no information derived from it may be published without the author’s prior consent

© Nguyen Ho Thanh Tam/ MBA02030/2012 - 2013

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Table of content

CHAPTER I – INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Problem statement 2

3 Objectives 3

4 Research questions 3

5 Scope and Limitation 3

6 Research Methodology 4

7 Significance of the research 5

8 Research Structure 5

CHAPTER II – LITERATURE REVIEW 7

1 Concepts and Definitions 7

1.1 Quality 7

1.2 Quality in higher education 7

1.3 Visual Control 8

1.4 Gantt chart 9

1.5 Total quality management 9

1.6 Total Quality Management in Higher education 12

2 Theoretical Frames 14

2.1 Deming’s philosophy 14

2.2 Edward Sallis’s model 15

3 Previous Researches 16

4 Background of Issues 17

4.1 Introduction about International University – VNU – HCMC 17

4.2 Recent quality model of IU 20

4.3 Research Model and Hypothesis 24

CHAPTER III – METHODOLOGY 27

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1 Research type and data source 27

2 Quantitative method 27

2.1 Quantitative research time frame 27

2.2 Quantitative research procedure 27

2.3 Quantitative research sampling 28

2.4 Quantitative research delivery methods .31

2.5 Measurement design 31

2.6 Data analysis techniques 31

CHAPTER IV – DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS 35

1 Questionnaire contents 35

2 Descriptive sample of questionnaires 39

3 Questionnaire result 41

3.1 Reliability test 41

3.2 Factor analysis 45

3.3 Reliability test after Factor analysis 47

3.4 Regression analysis and Hypothesis results 53

CHAPTER V – SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS 63

1 Demand of applying TQM 63

2 Suggested model for International University 63

3 Feedback system analysis 79

3.1 Which fields are International University realized by customers 79

3.2 Suggested plan 83

4 Customer service analysis 104

4.1 Customer service demand 104

4.2 Plan of construction Customer service system 106

CHAPTER VI – CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 125

1 EXPECTATION 125

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2 CONCLUSIONS 126

3 LIMITATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH 130

LIST OF REFERENCES 133

APPENDIX 137

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List of tables

Table 1: Sample sizes of kinds of respondent populations in IU 30

Table 2: Construct measurement scales for staffs 35

Table 3: Construct measurement scales for students 36

Table 4: Respond number of staffs 39

Table 5: Respond number of students 40

Table 6: Reliability test with Cronbach’s Alpha 41

Table 7: Factors and Variables for Staff 46

Table 8: Factors and Variables for Student 47

Table 9: Reliability Analysis after Factor analysis with Cronbach’s Alpha 48

Table 10: Correlation for student 53

Table 11: Coefficients for student 56

Table 12: Result of the relationship between dependent and independent variables 56

Table 13: Hypotheses result for student 57

Table 14: Correlation for staff 58

Table 15: Coefficients for staff 59

Table 16: Result of the relationship between dependent and independent variables 59

Table 17: Hypotheses result for Staff 60

Table 18: Frequencies for student 61

Table 19: Percentages of respondants choose over medium level 61

Table 20: Frequencies for staff 62

Table 21: Fields are International University realized by customers 80

Table 22: Questionnaire types 84

Table 23: Email list of management units of International University 102

Table 24: List of issues often asked by each kind of target clients and management units:.103 Table 25: Customer demand 105

Table 26: Summary of answer for research questions 129

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Table 27: Thesis appications 130

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List of figures

Figure 1: Quality development history 10

Figure 2: The Deming Wheel (PDCA cycle) 15

Figure 3: Edward Sallis’s TQM Framework 16

Figure 4: Plan of acquirement educational standards of IU 22

Figure 5: Research Model 25

Figure 6: Data analysis process 32

Figure 7: Adjusted Research model of Factor on Student 52

Figure 8: Adjusted Research model of Factor on Staff 52

Figure 9: Suggested TQM model for International University 64

Figure 10: Teaching – Learning process 67

Figure 11: Information announcement process 69

Figure 12: Complaint solving process 70

Figure 13: Meeting demand process 71

Figure 14: Curriculum development process 73

Figure 15: Facility management process 74

Figure 16: Curriculum management process 75

Figure 17: Management process 76

Figure 18: Acquirement educational standards process 78

Figure 19: IU – Industry and Society process 79

Figure 20: The general feedback and continuous improvement system 87

Figure 22: Window for customer to type question 90

Figure 22: Announcement after customer send question 90

Figure 23: Manager assigns question to employee 93

Figure 24: System updates worker assigned 94

Figure 25: Assigned employee answers assigned question 95

Figure 26: System updates answering information in employee window 96

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Figure 27: Response email 96

Figure 28: Answer content and customer satisfactory evaluation 97

Figure 29: Employee could not answer the question 98

Figure 30: Head of department has to ressign for question sent back 98

Figure 31: Report of Question by department 100

Figure 32: Report of Question by topic 100

Figure 33: Report of Satisfactory level 101

Figure 34: Report of Questions answered 101

Figure 35: Process of Online system for student’s demand receiving and solving 107

Figure 36: Student fulfills request form 108

Figure 37: Request receipt 109

Figure 38: A request already solved 110

Figure 39: A request has already send result to student 111

Figure 40: Confirm email 112

Figure 41: Statistics by solved time 112

Figure 42: Statistics by responded time 113

Figure 43: Statistics by answered requests 113

Figure 44: Current digram of International University Library 118

Figure 45: The procedure of online inputting for grading 123

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Abbreviations

IU, IU-VNU-HCMC: International University – Vietnam National University – HCMC

ABET: The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, Inc

AACSB: Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business

AUN: The ASEAN University Network

TQM: Total quality management

QC: Quality control

QA: Quality Assurance

QAC: Quality Assurance Center

BA: School of Business Administration

BT: School of Biotechnology

EE: School of Electrical Engineering

IT: School of Computer science & Engineering

BME: Department of Biomedical Engineering

OAA: Office of Academic Affairs

IRR: Office of International Relations and Research

OSS: Office of Student Service

GPA: Grade Point Average

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Abstract

Implementing Total Quality Management at Higher Educational Institutions is the current tendency in developed countries There are a lot of research have been conducted about this topic and many result have been found in some countries but in Viet Nam it is relatively a new concept and it is in initial stages

The purpose of this study is to research which elements affect to learning activities and management one in International University Then it considers the application of TQM in practice

The Literature review is conducted to provide the theoretical framework for the research model Construct measurement for seven factors was introduced and two questionnaires was prepared for testing activity quality in the university

After collecting and analyzing 1151 ones for student and 107 valid questionnaires for staff with SPSS software, the results has showed that Lecturer, Program, Auditorium, Laboratory, Library, Initial guidance and instruction for freshmen, Careers guidance and progression planning for graduates, Service of OAA, Service of OSS, Website, and Network have the positive relationship on GPA student Besides that, Training, Management, and Support have the negative relationship on Overdue in work of staff

Although there are limitations of this study, it is hoped to contribute implications for International University and other higher education institutions in Vietnam when they want to improve management quality and enhance customer satisfaction

Keywords: Total Quality Management (TQM), Higher Education Institutions,

and SPSS

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In about 30 years, Vietnam has continued to be a member of ten leading countries (out of 260 ones) on the international championship exams on mathematics However, university students are being deemed to be bad Graduates are not able to take jobs that would be done skillfully because of lack of initiative in the sense of work, communication skill, foreign language skills and management, etc According to the Ministry of Education and Training, about 20,000 students graduated from universities and colleges yearly Unfortunately, only 50% of graduates get jobs after graduation, and only 30% of them find the right lines which students work in fields that are suitable with their majors Almost all of them must be retrained both professional and communication skills, especially in foreign companies

These facts have shown a very worrying situation for the higher education quality

in our domestic universities

Besides, Vietnam is welcoming new winds for innovation along with the development of our country Being affected by this trend, the domestic universities are facing increasingly fierce competition from foreign universities which are recognized about the education qualities and well-known in Vietnam Moreover, with the increasing

of living standards, more and more parents have sent their children to study abroad So, a

2 Problem statement

Since its establishment, the International University has the task of educating high-quality human resources for our country This is a tested model with objective is to become one of top universities of Vietnam, Asia and all over the world So there is a fairly high requirement on management, quality training and quality of research for the

IU This poses many challenges in ensuring quality to improve itself

Besides, in order to be recognized as a high quality research university, IU set up

a process to meet many famous educational standards One of them is the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, Inc (ABET), which is a non-governmental organization that accredits undergraduate programs in applied science, computing, engineering, and engineering technology Another well-know standard applied in economic fields is the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) These standards are measures of the improvement of the IU itself

After nine years in operation, IU has trained several batches of graduate students who are well-evaluated by businesses that they are achieving the initial needs of the companies However, it has realized both many weaknesses and threats which could threaten the development of the university In order to overcome these weaknesses and

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obstacles, as well as continue to develop with initial target – a university training quality human resources and assessed by international standards, IU has practiced many improvements in many fields of teaching, learning and services It also has some achievements However, with the goal is to be the top university and to make friend with famous worldwide ones, IU needs a system for self-improvement and these improvements are recognized Application of Total quality management (TQM) could be the answer of the problem

high-3 Objectives

The purpose of this thesis is to build a relevant quality system at the International University by applying concept of Total quality management to improve Academic performance of students and Working quality at IU

4 Research questions

In this thesis, I will try to answer the following questions:

 1 How has management activities affected student academic performance?

 2 How has management activities affected staff working quality?

 3 What are the main problems of the current quality model of IU?

 4 Does Total quality management concept help to solve the problems?

 5 How does TQM apply to the International University? What is the suitable model? Which steps are needed in improving quality at IU?

 6 What are the expectations of practicing TQM in IU?

5 Scope and Limitation

This topic is studied at International University – Vietnam National University – HCMC in one year from January 2012 to December 2012 This period is the full duration

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of the first semester, the second one and the summer It includes activities that are took place in IU for all fields, from academy to outdoor activities; which have the participation of students, officers, managers

Target of this thesis are student and staff Student is the main customer of education institution Staff is working force that directly makes operating system go smoothly

With the time above, this thesis hopes to find out what is the real problems obstacle IU in developing process From that, we will try to find solutions to overcome

Because of the time limitation in doing this thesis, the research could not study all the academic years from the beginning of IU in 2003 However, this period could represent typically for the whole one So the data collected could be enough and represent for all information that would be analyzed in the study

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 Propose some plans to manage operation more effectively and gain more satisfaction of students, lecturers and employers

7 Significance of the research

Vietnam is still considered a developing country In order to develop, one of the important factors that our country needs is human resource Education system, especially

in university, has a huge responsibility to educate the graduates who have high level in learning outcome in both their majors and other skills will contribute actively to strategic walks of our country to being power in ASEAN and Asia

IU, the first public university using fully English in teaching, is joining into the mission of training high quality human resource for Vietnam Applying TQM will give a high education system not only for IU but also for other domestic universities I hope that this system will be applied in many universities in the process of national development effectively

8 Research Structure

The thesis will present as following content Firstly, chapter II, the concept of TQM will be introduced in our daily activities The chapter also considers several factors, which can influence the application of this theory in education environment, the conveniences and difficulties when practicing in IU Secondly, Chapter III will describe data collection methods The thesis uses some specific data from conducted interviews, documentation, questionnaire and some observation After that, Chapter IV shows how

to analyze and interpret the information collected in order to achieve the goals of research Then Chapter V will present the recommended procedures suitable with case study by analyzing all kinds of information gathered in previous chapter This section will also show some findings of the new model through making the comparison between

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it and the current one Finally, Chapter VI will evaluate the results and limitations raised

in chapter I In addition, this section will make a comparison between these results and correspondent objectives shown in chapter I The task is done in separate objective The last section also makes room for suggestions for IU in the improvement in activities in

order to educate more and higher quality students

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CHAPTER II – LITERATURE REVIEW

1 Concepts and Definitions 1.1 Quality

Quality is a term mentioned in many fields of daily life There are a lot of definitions and the meaning for the term quality has developed over time This research just presents some famous ones

Firstly, ISO 9000 defines quality is a degree to which a set of inherent characteristic fulfills requirements Secondly, Crosby (1980s) described quality is the conformance to requirements The difficulty with this statement is that the requirements may not fully represent customer expectations In addition, Joseph M Juran thought

"Quality is the fitness for use" The key point is fitness is defined by the customer

Through many concepts, we could realize that many authors agreed: “Quality is a dynamic state associated with Products, Services, People, Processes and Environments that meets or exceeds expectations” Besides, in service, many of them had the same opinion: “Quality is Customers’ satisfaction and is a fitness for use.”

1.2 Quality in higher education

The term “Higher education” mentioned in this thesis is university At the beginning, all university needs to achieve the minimum standards in order to be recognized as a “university” These standards includes many factors such as a building with auditoriums, laboratory rooms, and libraries; lecturers with master's degrees or higher in suitable majors; the curriculums and students

Competitive marketplaces require people at all levels of an organization to think

of ways to continuously improve the products or services delivers to customers Education institutions are not exception Because university is one kind of services, so it

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uses the definition of Fitness of Use to approach the quality in education Cheng and Tam (1997) made clear both internal and external stakeholders in the quality management process The former includes current students and front line staff; while employers, government bodies, institutional management, prospective students, and professional bodies are the later These stakeholders might have separated definitions of quality based on their demand as well as different ideas for how quality is evaluated Cheng and Tam (1997) even show that expectations of the different stakeholders may be not only different but also contradictory (p 23)

However, education is a special field, so there are some distinctive characteristics compared with the general model The first one is the input While services and production need material, men, money, machines and policy for operation; education clarifies men are faculty, staffs and students Besides that, it uses facility instead of machine to run the system The second one is output Services and production create products or services while education produces students and technology transfers In shorten; with two different points above, we could easily realize that the main difference

is students, who are not only customers but also providers

1.3 Visual Control

According to Russel and Taylor (2009), Visual Control is one of the instruments

in quality improvement They said that, “Visual control is production systems designed with quality in mind include visible instructions for worker or machine action, and direct feedback on the results of that action” Actually, this theory could be applied in every major, field, company, and organization in all kinds of industry The one uses visual control will look different from others There has many graphs, pictures, instructions,

of Slack – the amount by which an activity can be delayed without delaying any of the activities that follow it or the project on the whole (Russel & Taylor (2009) is the crucial thing that help managers find out which ones are critical activities and which ones are not In practice, it is very useful to arrange the limited resource

1.5 Total quality management

According to Elmuti et al (1996), TQM has generally been recognized as a major innovation in management and has gained widespread acceptance in business and industry TQM, founded by Toyoda Eichi of the Toyota Company in 1961, is an organization-wide management involves planning, organizing, directing, controlling, and assuring of the organization runs The theoretical foundations of TQM came from several people, including W Edwards Deming, Joseph M Juran and Philip Crosby in the USA and Genichi Taguchi and Kaoru Ishikawa in Japan (Brah et al., (2000))

TQM is the highest level in the quality chain The graph below shows the development process in quality from Detection methods through Inspection and Quality control (QC) with the target is to inspect products to find out and fix the defected ones

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Opposed to the passive response of the above methods, Prevention by applying Quality Assurance (QA) and TQM emphasize to stop problems at source and greater design is encouraged While QA just includes a lot of planned and systematic actions to insure that products or services conform to company requirements, TQM have covered the whole system by incorporating QC/QA activities into an organization-wide system aimed at satisfying the customer (involves all organizational functions)

Figure 1: Quality development history

Source: Workshop on ABET and AACSB at International University – Date 15/6/2012 – presented by Assoc Prof Ho Thanh Phong

With it philosophy, TQM has the vital factors which are the keys for success in implementing TQM for all organizations The first one is Customer Oriented As the researcher mentioned in previous session, customer is the party who evaluates and

Prevention:

Stop problems at source;

Greater design emphasis

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admits the quality of products or services that producers give them “Customer decides whether a product is of high quality, not the participants in process that created product”, stated Kwan (1996) So organizations have to match their outputs to users’ needs Besides paying attention to external customers, institutions must understand their internal ones such as managers, worker, etc They are the direct and indirect people who create the products or services to end users So their demands need to be satisfied in order to motivate them to do the best in their jobs

Continuous Improvement is the second factor As a supporting idea for Kwan, Sallis (2002) said that quality is what customers want, not what the institution design is best for them That leads the operators need to practice continuous improvement in order

to meet or exceed their customers’ demands, which are changing every day

In addition, Employee Involvement and Empowerment is one of the vital components First, the work “Total” in TQM mean everything and everybody in the organization is involved in the enterprise of continuous improvement, according to Sallis (2002) Second, “Management” applies for everyone, because each member in the situation is the manager of his own responsibility Their output will be the input of the next-in-line expert So if an institution wants to have a successful TQM model, each member in their organization must understand their roles and is eager to join to the model One of the useful methods for staff to enjoy their work is that they are empowered in the job This way helps workers improve their responsibilities and try their best to produce the high quality products for customers

TQM is a long term quality improvement with many efforts In order to practice them, the Leadership of each level of managers is crucial to the success of TQM Without the support of the top managers, it cannot be introduced to the institution When

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implementing TQM model, managers have to trust their staff and to delegate decisions to the appropriate level to give staff the responsibility to deliver quality within their own sphere, and of cause be willing to see them make honest mistake in order to correct and let they know the important impact of what they did to relevant procedures That helps their workers realize their vital roles and try not to repeat the mistake again Besides that, the visions and missions are needed to share in all organization Each member, when understand about their institution’s objectives clearly will actively joint into to process to meet the long run missions

According to Edwards Deming, measures of productivity are like statistics on accident and do not tell how to reduce the frequency of them On the contrary, in TQM with the final purpose is to provide customers the greatest degree of success, the idea of Performance measurement is pivotal Bolton (1995) though that “the measurement of performance is an inescapable feature of TQM.” Green (1994) also pointed out that some measurement methods to ensure conformance to customers’ expectations arenecessary

To sum up the previous ideas, Sallis (2002) suggested that through measurement, an organization is able to analyze the effectiveness of continuous improvement process Besides that, he emphasized the tools using in Performance measurement have to ensure that not only are things measured right, but also the right things are measured, and the right conclusions are shaped from the data

1.6 Total Quality Management in Higher education

Many research proved that TQM has applied successfully in many organization from production to service Higher education is one kind of services, so will be the field for TQM practice However, there are some differences about TQM in industry and in education that must be clarify

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Firstly, students play many different roles in university As usual, many people agree that student is the education institution’s customer However, they are also the input Each year, university organizes the entrance examination in order to seek the freshman student to educate until they graduate Moreover, an important role of student

is that they are the worker in their learning process Garner (1993) suggested that students can be treated like workers, and systems can be put in place to enable them to generate high levels of outputs with high level of quality

Secondly, objective of each university should encourage student develop their study in for aspects, these are Knowledge – which enable them to have the foundation knowledge about their major and other relevant one; Know how – which provide them the methods to do; Wisdom –which help them the ability to realize the new trends in their future career and institution in order to study with some short courses to adapt them; and Character –which support them to improve the skill and human behavior that enables to cooperate, to persevere and to become respected and trusted by colleagues, supervisors, managers and society

Thirdly, teaching and learning process is not the assembly lines In class, teachers and students communicate with each other, and the one’s behavior will influent to other

So this process cannot be treated like step-by-step procedure There are no strictly standardized criteria in the process which is affected by human behaviors of both parties, said Kwan (1996)

The final is input quality Freshmen are university’s input and they are not as precise as clear requirements of quality for raw materials in production The entrance examination or pre-admission academic performance is only information available to university admission officer when the admission decision has to be made The admission

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committee cannot assessable other standards such as attitudes of learning, learning strategy and interpersonal skill Besides that, students are human being, so their performances differ from day to day based on many factors such as motives or health conditions Kwan (1996) also raised a question concern about the effectiveness of student interview for entrance

2 Theoretical Frames 2.1 Deming’s philosophy

Among the extensive number of articles written on TQM in education, Deming’s philosophy is the most frequently cited reference He is widely recognized as the father

of TQM and thus a closer look at his work can help to understand the situation Deming’s work (1986) begins with the belief that all people are educable, that they want

to do a good job and they deserve respect “When there is a problem, 85% of the time it

is with the system; 15% of the time it will be with the workers.” He also takes into account statistical variation and calls for management by fact, which implies collecting data and analyzing them statistically before decisions are made Deming’s 14 points are widely recognized as the fundamentals of TQM, they can apply anywhere, to small organizations as well as to large ones, to the service industry as well as to manufacturing Winter [24] clarified Deming’s 14 principles into three broad categories:

1 Philosophy and mission – this category includes principles that stress focusing on customer needs in a never-ending search for quality

2 Organizational environment – these principles establish norms and values that dictate the treatment of each individual in the organization

3 Process – this category stresses the need for problem prevention throughout the process rather than the identification of failures at the end of the process

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Deming also developed the Deming Wheel from the Walter Shewhart’s original one The Wheel is a four stage circle starts from planning, go through doing, checking and end at acting The end here is just the end for one circle; the process will continue frequently for continuous quality improvement The figure below shows the details of each stage in Deming Wheel

Figure 2: The Deming Wheel (PDCA cycle)

Source: Operation Management along the Supply Chain – Russell & Taylor

2.2 Edward Sallis’s model

Edward Sallis is Principal and Chief Executive of Highlands College, the further, adult and higher education colleague of the States of Jersey in the British Channel Islands Sallis has 30 years’ experience in further and higher education, has taught in a wide range of institutions in the UK and Jersey

Edward is a specialist in quality management, organizational development and strategy and he holds degrees from London, Newcastle and Brunel universities He has

many publications about education, such as Total Quality Management (1992), authored with Dr Peter Hingley; and Knowledge Management in Education (2001), co-

co-authored with Dr Gary Jones

1 Plan: Study process, identify the

problem, set goals, and develop

the plan for improvement

2 Do: Implement the plan on a test

basis, measure improvement

3 Study/Check: Assess the plan,

find out whether it is working and goal achieved

4 Act: Institutionalize

improvement; continue the cycle

with new problem at stage 1

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In 2002, Sallis published the third edition of the book Total Quality Management

in Education This concerns elements in education management, especially in higher

education Sallis also introduced a suggested TQM framework with many components as follow

Figure 3: Edward Sallis’s TQM Framework

Source: Total Quality Management in Education – Edward Sallis

3 Previous Researches

Besides, there are a number of theses studied about many fields of quality at IU Typically, in 2011, Ms Nguyen Ngoc Tu, a BA07 student, learned which factors affect studying quality of International University students The thesis figured out students’ learning outcome is affected by 50% themselves, 30% teacher, and 20% left from school, family, friend, and learning environment So the role of university, lecturer, and staff is very huge in the study result of students

Moreover, in 2008, a group of students in HCMC University of Technology used Lean Servicing with the aim improving the total quality of IU They revised all processes

in each department, found which were not suitable and fixed them The thesis also recommended some new procedures for smoother daily works In addition, they built a basis evaluation system of staff and lecturer for each quarter, each semester, and each year This system has developed to the current award system in each academic year of IU (Source: Office of Human resource management and Quality Assurance Center, 2012)

4 Background of Issues 4.1 Introduction about International University – VNU – HCMC

As be mentioned in chapter I, International University is the first public university using English in teaching and learning for the whole curriculum of all majors

Stated in IU vision and mission, the university wants to become the leading university acquiring regional and world standards, so International University has built a strong teaching staff consists of 139 people with 100% master degree or higher, and has 58.3% meet at least doctor degrees Moreover, IU and the faculties have been trying to find and attract the cooperation of qualified teachers from other universities and prestigious ones in the world Therefore, the current ratio of Vietnamese and foreign teachers is 6:4 (see Appendix B)

4.1.2 Education activities

After nine years from establishment, the International University has increasingly expanded the number of not only on students but also on programs (Appendix C, D)

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Until now, IU is educating students in eleven domestic programs stretching from engineers to economies and technical researches Besides, it has also signed cooperation with many famous universities on the world Begin at seven twinning programs with two universities in the UK in 2005, the university now has 25 twinning programs associated with nine continental leading universities with are in ongoing (Office of Academic Affairs, 2012)

Although established in 2003, the first batch of students in Business Administration and Information Technology enrolled in 2004 So far, the university has four graduating batches, and the upcoming 5th batch will graduate on October, 2012 In the same time, the number of students has been increasing many times, from 219 in 2004

up to approximated 4150 in the academic year 2012-2013

4.1.3 Research activities

Research is the second major goal of IU and has achieved some positive results

In the academic year 2010 – 2011, works of scientific research of lecturers have posted a total of 83 in international journal; 114 articles published in magazines in the domestic and international conference (IU Annual report, 2012)

The International University has implemented 60 contracts for 68 subjects with

an expenditure levels up to 4.412 billion (government budget) IU has also deployed 13 research topics in the natural sciences with Nafosted fund With the effort from teachers and the effective support from the board of management and staff, Nafosted fund approved 8 threads at a cost: 5.674 billion for 2012 and 2013 (IU Annual report, 2012)

On December 2011, IU organized two successful international conferences, which were Conference Information Integration, Web services and application, 13th(iiWAS-2011) and the Conference of the advances in mobile computing and multi-

project, a three-fold increase over 2010 (IU Annual report, 2011)

4.2 Recent quality model of IU 4.2.1 Internal evaluation

Since its establishment, IU has always focused on the quality of their training Several proposals have been introduced to improve the quality, standard of its education, and to make the system more effective In 2008, Quality Assurance Center (QAC) was established Its function and duties are coordinating with the departments, faculties, and departments to build mechanisms and implementation of data collection, storage and reporting on the activities university in accordance with current quality standards In addition, the department has responsibility to develop and implement plans for cooperation with other institutes in the field of quality assurance Moreover, QAC has a duty to consultant to the Board of Management of the measures and operational improvement plan to improve the quality of training Besides that, it assists the standing for the Council's self-assessment audit unit and quality testing Finally, QAC is permitted

to join the evaluation team outside of the school plan

In four recent years, QAC has been developing and doing many creative activities for IU The department cooperates with all schools to implement the course and lecturer evaluation system This evaluation is done by students who took part in the course Through thirteen criteria and a five-range scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree

or from poor to excellent, they shown their satisfaction not only about the lecturers, the

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course content but also the facility QAC will collect data and code the result, convert it into the score for lecturer evaluation task in each six months (Quanlity Assurance Center, 2012) Besides that, the opinion of students about the course content will be analyzed and maybe used in revising or creating suitable curriculum Furthermore, IU will make plans to facilitate the facility in order to serve its lecturers and students more and more effective

4.2.2 Outside evaluation

As the research mentioned in Chapter I, the International University is on the road to acquire the domestic and foreign standards Because IU-VNU-HCMC is a public university, it has to be tested by MOET standard from VNU HCMC IU satisfied almost the criteria in this standard in 2009 2010 is the year of a leap in quality control, when the International University was recognized by the ASEAN University Network (AUN) in Computer Science and Engineering program Continued success, BT program has achieved AUN in 2011 According to the quality control plan, BA and EE programs will

in turn achieve this standard by 2012 and 2013, respectively From here, IU have to work with hard effort to catch the ABET and AACSB in 2015

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Figure 4: Plan of acquirement educational standards of IU

Source: Workshop on ABET and AACSB at International University – Date 15/6/2012 – presented by Assoc Prof Ho Thanh Phong

Throughout the years to pursue standards for the quality of education, beside the initial successes, a fact which is easy to realize that IU had an asynchronous in operation

A highlight situation is that the archives have not been considered properly In order to

external evaluation team could assess the satisfaction level of the university on the

criteria in the standard, IU should provide real proofs However, this task is actually

having a lot of difficulties due to many reasons First, relevant departments did not pay

more attention in data storage from the previous year, data have not been put in the right

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way in a right order, that lead to the result of having to spend a lot of time in finding evidence Second, the statutes of the university refer to certain provisions and operations, but in fact that they did not occur or occur infrequently, so when participating in assessments, the sub-units have to perform additional operations Third, a number of activities have been carried out regularly under the direct direction of the management board; however, they have not been specified in writing, so the unit in charge had to make the text of these activities to specific evidence for assessment

4.2.3 Lecturer and staff training

Aware of the importance of the high quality lecturers and staffs in the performance of IU, from 2011, the International University has sent groups of teachers and employees to the outers which are mainly in The United State of America to study However, funding for each trip are very expensive, so IU could only hold for a few typical employees of departments and faculties in each of the two months of training Moreover, this activity just appears only 2 times per year, so the number of officials has

a chance to study new things gets a very small percentage compared with the number of total troops

In addition, IU has tried to open short courses or workshop for the staffs and lecturers at the building of university, but the number of sessions is limited due to the time constraints of the audiences Teachers have hours in class during the week and the staff busy with their daily work, so it is difficult to gather enough members in each session In addition, it is not easy to invite suitable qualified speakers or experts to lecture topics related to training courses

4.2.4 Redesigning job description

a part or the whole procedure or even human resource to process the job All the key factors mentioned above have contributed to the incompletion of redesigning job description in IU

4.3 Research Model and Hypothesis

Sum up from former researches written in literature review and experiences of working at IU, the author generate a research model mainly base on Sallis model The research model in this study comprises of 7 independent components:

- Teaching and Learning

- Facilities

- Initial guidance and instruction for freshmen

- Careers guidance and progression planning for graduates

- Services

- Training activities for staff (or Training activities)

- Management activities

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There are two dependent variables, includes Student academic performance and Staff working quality

Figure 5: Research Model

There are also 7 hypotheses formulated for this Research model They are used to answer question 1 and 2 in research question:

Question 1: How has management activities affected student academic performance?

H1: There is a positive impact of Teaching and Learning on Student GPA

H2: There is a positive impact of Facilities on Student GPA

H3: There is a positive impact of Initial guidance and instruction for freshmen on

Student GPA

Teaching and Learning

Facilities

Initial guidance and instruction for freshmen

Careers guidance and progression planning

for graduates

Services

Student academic performance

H1 (+) H2 (+)

H6 (-)

H7 (-)