TQM in the educational context

Total Quality Management (TQM) is becoming increasingly used to describe a variety of different initiative in organizations. It refer to the systematic management of an organization's customer-supplier relationship in such a way as to ensure sustainable, steep-slope improvement in quality performance. The key word in TQM is Management, Quality performance does not occur by happenchance or accident, it occurs because it is designed into the way the organization works; it permeates all aspects of the organization. Total quality means what it says. All aspects of the organization have to be dedicated to the goal of achieving the highest possible standards of performance as required by their customers (internal or external), given the strategy they are pursuing. It is total, in that it affects all who work in the school and in that it affects all activities undertaken in the name of the school. This requires everyone associated with the school to understan their quality commitments and obligations and the goals they need to meet to make quality a reality. It requires the commitment of all employees to high performance and quality and the alignment of these staff, around challenging goals.
The customer-supplier relationships within the school and between the school and its consumer and provider stakeholders are the basic for all activities. If these processes and chain are managed weel, with a constant focus on high performance and improvement, then quality achievements follow. What is important here is that attention is given to the managing of processes, because processes produce outcomes. Far too much attention has been focused upon securing outcomes, no matter what the process looks like - yet it is process quality and effectiveness that leads to sustainable quality outcomes. Process here refer to the way in which people work to achieve results.