Process improvement in higher education institutions.

Abstract

In a competitive environment for good quality prospective students, where academic institutions are under pressure to develop employable graduates, quality of education has become a crucial differentiator. Therefore, institutions need to focus on the way they manage the quality of their processes in order to remain competitive in the business of education. Although the literature review shows several approaches have been adopted to improve quality in higher education, there is still no agreement on how best to apply quality within Higher Education Institutions. Hence, the main motivation for this research was to be able to improve the quality of educational processes. This research begins by exploring how business process modelling techniques can be transferred to educational processes. A mixture of hard and soft modelling techniques was used and findings were analysed, both with respect to the utility of techniques and the process improvement itself. A 'novel' hybrid Role Activity Diagrams (RADs) – Soft Systems Model (SSM) – Rich Picture was proposed and applied to the student journey process. However, even though the integrated model was useful in uncovering process issues, it did not always support innovative solutions for change nor did it help in deciding which solutions fit best with the organisational context. Therefore, a fusion method combining modelling, improvement alternatives and organisational context was proposed. The fusion method provides guidance to the nature of improvements that are suitable for a given context. While process modelling provides detailed process description, alternative improvements will enable the discovery of better solutions. Finally, determining the suitability of different improvements can be identified by matching those improvements to organisational context which will enable institutions to derive changes according to their capabilities. It would enable HEIs to have a development strategy that leads to continuous improvement. As a result, it would enable institution to being able to provide and then maintain high quality processes and in turn student satisfaction.