Implementation of Total Quality Management in Technical Education-A Framework

It is necessary to reform the current system of education. It must be changed from one which sorts, ranks and screens the youth of the nation to one which develops them into quality performers, at whatever level and in whatever field they choose to work. In today's engineering profession, a diversity of engineering approach is a necessity, for which the technical education has a primary responsibility to ensure that the graduate will approach industrial experience in a receptive frame of mind. Educational institutions need to become more responsive to the expectations of those they serve. Although the supply of engineers appears to match the demand, the direction and relevance of engineering education has been questioned. Quality-driven approach will help the institutions forge more effective partnerships with their primary customer, industry, in an age where economic power is vital to the well-being of the country. It will allow them to nurture a feeling of self-renewal and develop the means to actualize self assessment procedures; and it will provide the institutions with a methodology and accompanying set of tools to make work processes more effective and efficient. Hence there is immediate necessity for the colleges and universities to imbibe principles of Total Quality Management to develop and deliver their services to delight the customer. The thrust is to graduate students who possess a natural orientation toward quality principles and a set of acquired skills to apply the knowledge on the field with little or no orientation. The paper discusses the inception of TQM, its misconceptions, prelude of its importance in the field of education in other countries. Its immediate attention in the technical education in the Indian context with a brief framework of its implementation.