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|SANIBLAKAS FOUNDATION

SANIBLAKAS  FOUNDATION PROGRAM THRUST FOR  HUMAN DEVELOPMENT & HARMONY (HDH) LIGHT-SHARE PROGRAM  Lambat-Liwanag. PROJECT TO BUILD A NETWORK OF CENTERS FOR EMPOWERING PARADIGMS PARADIGM-SPECIFIC HANDOUTS

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[This is excerpted from the introductory portion of "Developing a Stakeholders’ Quality Assesment Model in Higher Education," the doctoral dissertation of Dr. Barrios at the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila a few years ago. Academicians interested in this study may contact him at PLM-UCRCS. He is in the process of developing ideas from this study to be submitted to Lambat-Liwanag as an input for "Reinventing the School" within the seventh Paradigm, titled "Light-Seeking, Light-Sharing Education."]

QUALITY performance in higher education is measured through appropriate assessment or evaluation. However, very few of these instruments are available for use. Sometimes only the few powerful elite groupings and high academic officials have the hand on these assessment tools.

In his almost ten years of teaching in a university, the Researcher of this dissertation was contemplating on the idea of designing an evaluation instrument which would distinctly measure quality performance among higher education institutions (HEIs). Such instrument in mind, however, is not the usual self-serving or traditionally prepared type of evaluation. It should be something objective and unbiased.

The Researcher has been dissatisfied with the present evaluation instruments he is familiar with. But there was this dilemma on how to start the study, and it came from several unanswered questions: From what point should the study begin? In the first place, who should really evaluate the quality performance of HEIs? How can objectivity in evaluation be achieved? Can the raters be ratees, too? What new indicators can be used to measure quality? Are there other unique criteria that experts have not used in assessing quality performance in higher education?

The dilemma lasted until such idea was confirmed by a 1994 article titled "Assuring Quality in Open and Distance Learning," where Bernadette Robinson states: "(Q)uality does not exist in isolation from context of use...and judgments differ according to whose views are being sought. The differences stem from the amalgam of different meanings under the label of ‘quality’ and the variety of perspectives of stakeholders."

Robinson’s article came like "manna from heaven" because it provided a clear and defined direction to the Researcher’s long cherished dream of contributing worthy research for the academe. Robinson’s article provided the groundwork to address the objective of this study, and its central idea is the phrase judgment from the viewpoints of the stakeholders (Researcher’s italics).

The phrase "perspectives of stakeholders" has been recognized by other authors for HEIs. Graham Peeke (1994), in his book "Mission and Change" directly suggests that HEIs should have constant "consultation with stakeholders group...outside the institutions..." Ronald Barnett (1992), in his book Improving Higher Education, Total Quality Care, published by The Society for Research into Higher Education in England, gives his version of stakeholders as "the perceptions and value-preferences of separate sub-cultures." Furthermore, Robinson (1994) reinforces her concept of stakeholders by writing: "Different views on quality may also be held simultaneously by different functional areas within a single organization."

A more relevant idea about the significance of stakeholders in HEIs is given by Barnett (1992) and he labels them "different interest groups." He says: "Different interest groups." He says: "Different interest groups will have their own ideas as to what constitutes quality and how to measure it; and in any democratic society the actual arrangement in use will be the outcome of a political, economic and social interplay between the competing interesting groups." (Improving Higher Education, p. 45)

Who then are the stakeholders being referred to by these authors? They are the actual people, groups or organizations within and outside the colleges and universities, who, in one way or another, have been affected, involved and influenced by the various affairs, activities and procedures of the academe. These include teachers, students, institutional managers, industrialists, employers, employees, shareholders, suppliers, and the public at large (Peeke, 1994; Rue and Byars, 1992).

We are familiar with all of them but we don’t often include them as part of the academe because we see them as geographically external to our colleges and universities, physically outside our campuses. In fact, however, in the larger, global sense, other cultures and sub-cultures, countries and even the whole of humanity are stakeholders of HEIs.

Following the principle that a college/university should be an "extension of life chances" (Barnett, 1992), then higher education is expected to offer "life skills" (Cannoin, 1988) which would improve quality of life of individuals and eventually advance the conditions of society as a whole.

In this context, every member of our society is seen to benefit from the Researcher’s study because both the internal and external human/social environment of the HEIs are considered stakeholders. However, aside from the standard benefits, stakeholders will gain added values and dimensions from this study. The most significant of these are the following:

Students will have a better understanding of what they must expect from entering colleges/universities. Aside from learning skills and much detailed knowledge, the student’s highest aim should be the development of that quality habit of "independent intellectual inquiry" (Little, 1970).

Parents would become aware of their important responsibility as the major partners of the college/university in educating their children. They would reinforce in their children the idea that quality education is more than merely getting a diploma, or an economic investment for a secure income and social status, and that it is actually acquiring professional skills, proper attitude and thereafter rendering sincere service to society.

Educators, namely the teachers, as well as the heads and administrators of colleges and universities, are given the impetus and opportunity to rethink and recast, or even just update, their educational ideas, in the performance of their responsibility to provide quality guidance and counseling programs to their students for democratic and mature thinking.

Research communities would have new avenues for in-depth studies and further empirical explorations on trends and issues about quality assurance in higher education.

Business communities would be given more enthusiasm in supporting colleges and universities in terms of quality trainings and scholarships, because they would be fully aware that graduates of HEIs are both capital and labor investments who are eventually absorbed by business and industry.

Government leaders and public officials would continue to be natural allies of higher education. They would utilize their honest influence and power in the formulation of quality educational policies, governance and finance, particularly in the aspect of resource allocation.

Pressure groups would become more vigilant in promoting initiatives and, as deemed necessary, in staging democratic protests, to support efforts for the development of quality higher education.

Professionals, professional groups and socio-civic organizations shall be more sincere in their support to HEIs by setting aside personal or vested interests over the interests and advantages of higher education as it strives for quality performance.

THERE IS AN urgent need to encourage all stakeholders and actual managers of HEIs to reevaluate, rethink, recast and realign their priorities and parameters in the future development of their respective HEIs. There is a need to effectively challenge as well as to effectively help all who are sincere in redefining and fully performing their roles in the pursuit of quality in higher education.

Their renewed and more dynamically-directed efforts, in turn, would go along way in pursuing a higher quality of human civilization in the Philippines and in the whole world.

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