Management

Quality Management in Educational Units
INTERNATIONAL COURSE
Trainer:
VESELA TODOROVA
Regional Department of Education Pazardzhik, Bulgaria
1
Quality Management in Educational Units/ Managementul calitatii in unitatile de invatamant
Introduction
Debates on the quality of education at

European (and not only) level are becoming more
and more alive today and the responsibility of the
actors involved is unequivocally expressed: "The
quality of an education system cannot go beyond
the quality of its teachers and school principals, as
learning pupils is , ultimately, the product of what
is happening in class."
A recent EU Education Report confirms the
necessity and importance of the subject. We are
very far from a European or international
consensus on what a "good school" means.
"Making high-quality education a reality for all
young people is an essential concern for the future
of Europe."
School is a space of humanism and
professionalism in the heart of society. It cannot
exist without responsible, creative, coherent and
proactive involvement of teachers and those who
benefit from the services of the education system:
primary school pupils, secondary school students,
students, parents, employers.
Do we have a quality school? Do we want a

quality school? Do we want a better future? In the
field of education quality, very few researches and
analyses have been undertaken at national level,
although the requirements in this field are
increasing.
The fundamental pillars of education:
"learning to learn", "learning to do", "learning the
rules of cohabitation," and "learning to be" receive
new formative content and require new teaching-
learning strategies. "Learning to know" can be
concretized, first by creating the learning
conditions specific to the knowledge society for
every inhabitant of the planet. Consideration must
be given to the understanding of one's own destiny
and the essence of the human being in order to
adopt a dignified, sociable and responsible
behavior.
The approach to this work of quality in the
school is argued by the desire to discover ways to
achieve quality in education and performance in
editorial management. There is a close link
between these two components, because a
performance management of the school inevitably
leads to a good education of the pupils in the
school.
Particularities of Quality Management in

Education
The General Concept of Quality and its
Application in Education
Efficiency and quality of education are

fundamental prerequisites for social cohesion, active
citizenship, economic growth and human
development for the transition to a knowledge
society.
Quality definitions are numerous (over one
hundred ...).
"Quality means good work, good product /
service, satisfied customer, conscientious workers,
performance management, excellent quality
management.
"Quality is a philosophy; it involves a
profound cultural exchange that determines the
participation and involvement of all, as well as the
implementation of management systems that put the
customer first."
Quality is done by people who continually
master / assure / control / improve quality according
to the documents that prescribe it. Quality must meet
/ meet market / consumer requirements /
requirements that can change over time.
"The pedagogical concept of quality in

education defines the capacity of the system and
of the educational process to accomplish their
general functions (with an objective character,
which determines the basic structure of education
/ correlation teacher - educator, teacher - student),
at higher parameters, employed in positive sense
through the finite (subjective character), value-
designed at the level of philosophy and education
policy.
We have in mind:
- the function of maximal generality
(training-development of the personality of the
educator for his short-, medium- and long-term
psychosocial integration) and the main functions
of social (cultural, civic, professional) and
psychological (cognitive, non-cognitive)
formation;
- the finality of the educational system
(the ideal of education, the general and strategic
goals) and the educational process (general and
specific objectives, operationalised by the teacher
in each specific activity/lesson, etc.)“.
Quality in education is therefore the set of
characteristics that demonstrate the extent to
which the objective, implicit (general functions of
education, the basic structure of education) and
the subjective, explicit (the objectives of the
education.
The concept of total quality management

can be understood better in the context of the
fourteen points of total quality that has been
advanced as a framework by W. Edwards Deming.
The fourteen points of Deming can be applied in
the university setting.
The fourteen points of Deming in Walton
(2002) are the following:
1) The creation of constancy of purpose
by developing a mission statement on the goals
and objectives of the educational process;
2) The adoption of a new philosophy,
which provides for quality in all aspects of
institutional operations, such as classroom
instruction, bookstore service, campus safety and
security, maintenance of sanitation, and emphasis
on cooperation as opposed to competition;
3) Cessation of dependence on mass
inspection by focusing on the product or service
process instead of depending on audits, or
inspection to build quality;
4) Ending the practice of conducting business on cost alone,

since the lowest bid does not result in the lowest life cycle cost;
5) Constant improvement of process for the satisfaction of
students and their future employers and the happiness of the
administration, the employers, and suppliers of the institution;
6) The institution of training in order to help the members
of the academic community perform their duties and responsibilities
better;
7) The institution of leadership rather than management
with emphasis on what Senge (2000) regards as leadership in the
sense of being a designer and the creator of the environment;
8) The elimination of fear, which is often an important
factor in student and faculty performance;
9) The demolition of barriers by encouraging cooperation,
not competition through encouraging the formation of cross-
functional teams to address problems and process improvements;
10) Avoidance of obsession with goals and slogans, since
telling someone to do good is meaningless without the means to
achieve that goal;
11) Elimination of numerical quotas, such as the number of
papers or number of enrollment per major, since these concerns tend
to reduce quality;
12) Removal of barriers to pride of workmanship that
flows from having a part in the development of programs;
13) Organization-wide involvement, in which everyone in
the institution must be included in the educational process and be
aware of and concerned with the students, and
14) Definition of management responsibilities in order to
make it happen in such a manner that every level must take and
show pride in adopting the total quality management philosophy
(Winn and Green, 2002).
The second fundamental tenet pertaining to

total quality management is that everyone in the
organization must be dedicated to continuous
improvement, personally and collectively. As
Senge (2000) has suggested, those organizations
which are most capable of surviving and
prospering are “learning organizations” where
people, processes and systems are dedicated to
continuous improvement personally and
collectively. In order to be true learning
organizations, schools must be afforded the
resources, especially time and money, needed for
training, quality circles, research, and
communication with the school’s stakeholders—
the business organizations, colleges, community
residents, and taxpayers. Schools must also
rethink practices that focus narrowly on students’
limitations rather than their range of innate
strengths. Howard Gardner (2001) has pointed out
the self-defeating nature of a narrow academic
focus, encouraging educators to acknowledge the
existence of multiple intelligences and potentials
within each student and to help students develop
their much intelligence more fully day by day.
True dedication to the improvement of all students
will require educators to reexamine current
practices of grading and assessment.
The third fundamental tenet is that the

organization must be viewed as a system and the
work people do within the system must be seen as
ongoing processes (Deming in Walton, 2002)
suggests that more than 85 percent of all things
that go wrong in any organization are directly
attributable to how the organization’s system and
processes are set up. Individual teachers and
students then, are less to blame for failure than is
the system—the seemingly immutable patterns of
expectations, activities, perceptions, resource
allocations, power structures, values, and the
traditional school culture in general. In total
quality management, attention is given to the
system more than anything else. In the new
paradigm of education, continual improvement of
learning processes will replace the “teach and test”
mode of instruction. The quality of teaching-
learning processes is reflected in learning
outcomes (Bonstingl, 2000).
The fourth fundamental tenet is that the
success of Total Quality Management is the
responsibility of top management. Without
concerted, visible, and constant dedication to
making TQM principles and practices part of the
deep culture of the organization, efforts are bound
to fail.
Educational management is
"the science and the art" to
prepare human resources, form
personalities, according to
finesse accepted by individual
and society or a certain
community. It includes a set of
principles and functions, norms
and methods of leadership that
ensure the achievement of the
objectives of the educational
system (as a whole or at the level
of the component elements), at
the highest standards of quality
and efficiency.
New Standard of the Management System for

Educational Organizations
Education is not only a basic right, but a
fundamental part of society, so that the quality of
educational providers is the concern of all.
However, an educational organization can never
guarantee the success of its trainees. There are,
however, a number of ways in which it can
respond more effectively to needs and can
contribute to better learning outcomes.
ISO 21001, Educational Organizations -
Management Systems for Educational
Organizations - Requirements for use, is a
management system standard that is partially
aligned to ISO 9001: 2015 for quality
management systems. It provides a common
management tool for educational organizations to
improve processes and address the needs and
expectations of service users.
The new standard will also help education
providers to align their activities effectively with
their mission and vision and provide more
personalized learning, both benefiting not only
trainees but also through improved processes and
a system of improvement in time, the contribution
of educators, parents and other stakeholders who
will / will also improve the quality of the results.
The quality of education will always depend

on organizational culture. According to Nguyen,
organizational culture is considered a key element
of success or failure in the quality approach.
Improving the quality of education will lead,
through the qualifications provided by education
providers, to the adequacy of educational services
to the expressed and implicit needs, and to the
satisfaction growth of the direct and indirect
beneficiaries of the educational services offered.
The conclusion is that in order to change
well what happens in school / class, in order to
"produce" quality, each teacher must know his
weaknesses, understand good practices in the
field, and be motivated to improve them.
Quality as a Measure of Effectiveness in

Education
The dimensions of quality are divided into two

categories: product quality and service quality. The
product quality dimensions include performance or
operating characteristics, features or important
special characteristics, flexibility or the capability to
meet operating specifications over some period of
time, durability or the amount of use before
performance deteriorates, conformance or
consistency with pre-established standards,
serviceability or ease and speed of repair or normal
service, aesthetics or the appearance of the product,
and the perceived characteristics or subjective
assessment of the product image. The service quality
dimensions are timeliness or performance in the
stipulated time period, courtesy or cheerful
performance, consistency or the similarity of
experiences of the clientele, convenience or
accessibility to customers, completeness or full
service according to requirements, and accuracy or
correct performance in each instance of service (Hitt,
Ireland and Hoskisson, 2005).
To attain and sustain national, regional, or

international quality, certain components are
particularly relevant, notably careful selection of
staff and continuous staff development, in
particular through the promotion of appropriate
programs for staff development including
teaching/learning methodology and mobility
between countries, between education institutions,
and between education institutions and the world
of work, as well as student mobility within and
between countries. The new information
technologies are an important tool in this process,
owing to their impact on the acquisition of
knowledge and know-how (World Conference on
Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century,
1998.
Quality assurance for school development
Quality assurance
Transformational vision of quality means that
the entire management and insurance system
evolves together, influencing each other, in orders
to satisfy the needs and interests of the
beneficiaries. An educated beneficiary who is
effectively involved in quality management will
demand quality educational services that will in
turn make the customer more demanding and
involved in quality management.
Contemporary education can only support this
concept: increasing the quality of education leads
the beneficiary to be more demanding, demanding
an even higher level of the quality of educational
services. Evaluation and quality assurance cannot
be achieved exclusively through external
evaluation (inspection), which rarely can
effectively prevent the occurrence of major
dysfunctions and which, obviously, cannot keep
pace with rapid social change. As a result, in the
quality assurance systems, there is an increasing
emphasis on inter-evaluation and, above all, on
self-evaluation.
Between management science and pedagogy as
a science of education there is a similarity
determined by several factors, which have a
pronounced interdisciplinary character.
On the boundary between the two areas, a new discipline

can be outlined and which is going to be defined and applied,
that is the educational / pedagogical management.
Pedagogical management is a system of concepts,
methods, guidance and leadership, coordination, used to achieve
the objectives of education, at the level of the expected
performance.
Pedagogical management knows, integrates and adapts
the data provided by related sciences: economics (organization
and efficient use of education resources in relation to
objectives), sociology (management of organizations, groups,
relationships, social phenomena generated in the educational
field), psycho-sociology (the dimensions of personality the role
of the manager in the exercise of roles), political science
(making decisions, organizing, leading groups according to
objectives, finding solving strategies).
The new requirements of management and quality
assurance in education aim at the comprehensive reform of
education in Romania and Bulgaria conceived as a set of
measures regarding:
• Curricular reform (curriculum, programs, manuals) and
European compatibility of the national curriculum;
• Switching from reproductive to creative learning;
• A new connection between schools, high-schools and
universities, on the one hand, and their economic,
administrative and cultural environment, on the other;
• Improving infrastructure and connecting to the electronic
communications of the world today;
• Reforming school and academic management

through decentralization and creating
institutional autonomy of educational units;
• The initiation of advanced forms of
international cooperation
• There must be taken into account the
combination of autonomy and quality
assurance.
Building a quality assurance system in an
education provider is based on some guiding
principles that will build specific criteria,
standards, indicators and procedures. All this
requires: customer focus, accountability, results
(value added, value created), individual and
institutional autonomy, empowerment, dialogue,
valorization of resources (human and material),
supplier - inefficient partnership, innovation,
continuous improvement.
Guiding Principles for policy development on

quality assurance in school education
Quality assurance is important for
accountability as well as to support ongoing
development of schools and of teaching and
learning. Well-functioning systems have
mechanisms to support and balance vertical and
horizontal, internal and external accountability.
Quality assurance that is focused on development
supports schools to adapt to the changing needs of
learners. The focus is not only on improvement but
also innovation - that is, the development or
experimental testing of approaches in different
contexts -- to support quality, equity and
efficiency. Approaches to quality assurance may
need to be adapted over time to better meet needs
for feedback and decision-making across systems.
The eight guiding principles
1. COHERENCE: Systems should strive
over time to achieve balance and coherence across
different mechanisms that have been developed to
meet the demands and expectations of stakeholders
working within schools and in the wider school
education system.
2. PROFESSIONAL LEARNING
COMMUNITIES: Quality assurance policies should
support professional learning communities to make
best use of quality assurance data for school and
system development with the ultimate goal of
ensuring the best learning opportunities for all
learners.
3. TRUST AND SHARED
ACCOUNTABILITY: Trust and respect between
and among internal and external actors are
fundamental for effective evaluation and school
development.
4. SUPPORT INNOVATION: Schools
leaders and teachers need opportunities to take
considered risks in order to innovate and develop.
Careful attention to data on the impact of
innovations, including potential unintended
outcomes, is essential.
5. SHARED UNDERSTANDING AND

DIALOGUE: Quality assurance approaches should
support the development of a common language
and shared understanding among internal and
external actors that the fundamental purpose of
evaluation is to support school development.
6. NETWORKS: Networks between
schools and with local and wider communities can
support collective engagement, build social and
intellectual capital and spark new synergies across
school systems.
7. BUILDING CAPACITY FOR DATA:
Investments in building capacity of key actors to
generate, interpret and use data, are crucial.
8. DIFFERENT DATA FOR BALANCED
VIEW: Different types of data -both quantitative
and qualitative, and gathered over time - are
necessary for a balanced understanding of school
development and learner progress. These data
should communicate authentic narratives of
schools and provide the information necessary to
support decision-making both within schools and
across school systems.
In Romania, as developing new
approaches and widening perspectives, the
national standards and procedures for
internal and external evaluation were
reviewed in 2016, with the aim of
simplifying them and re-directing the focus
on student results and children’s well-being.
‘The Quality Certificate’, is issued after
recurrent evaluation. The results, which
include an ‘added value index’, are
published. In other words, the index includes
the evaluation results, after controlling for
the influence of the school context and input
factors (such as family background and
community factors, the socioeconomic
background of the school, the school
infrastructure, etc.). This index is intended to
measure educational efficiency, and to reveal
whether schools’ actual results are above or
below the expected norm, given their
circumstances.
Many countries incorporate evaluations that

are external and internal to schools, which can
complement and reinforce each other. It is believed
that school education systems that support the
synergy of external and internal quality assurance
mechanisms will have more resilience for the
complex process of change.
While each system is different, countries
share several common policy challenges and
opportunities in their approach to quality
assurance. These include how to:
• set goals and measure progress for
education systems and student learning;
• design quality assurance for education
systems that are increasingly diverse, decentralized
and multi-level;
• support and encourage dialogue and
cultures of trust between and among education
stakeholders;
• ensure transparency of quality assurance
data while also avoiding the pressure of high
stakes approaches; and
• prioritize human and financial resources.
Increasingly, national governments are shifting greater

control to the local level while maintaining responsibility for the
effectiveness, efficiency and equity of the overall system.
National policy mechanisms may include direct interventions,
such as regulations, or indirect interventions, such as frameworks
that may be adapted to local conditions.
At national and regional levels, it is important to have
broad indicators of overall education performance. Quantitative
data may be aggregated to make system-level decisions, for
example, the equitable distribution of resources across regions
and schools. At the school level, disaggregated quantitative data
may be used to identify areas where further investigation of
student needs may be appropriate. Qualitative data also provide
important context and allow a more nuanced understanding of
the school’s progress.
Countries are also increasingly allowing schools greater
autonomy so they may better respond to local contexts and
individual learner needs. Internal quality assurance mechanisms
support evidence-based decision-making for internal
accountability (that is, peer professional accountability) and
school development.
Most European countries have created frameworks that
integrate some combination of internal and external quality
assurance mechanisms, which may include:
• Inspectorates
• National student assessments
• School self-evaluation
Recommendations
It is recommended that countries take note of
the eight guiding principles when reviewing their
quality assurance mechanisms for school
education. Furthermore, it is recommended that:
At European level:
> Countries continue to take opportunities for
peer learning and peer counseling in order to
reflect on and refine their own quality
assurance approaches;
> Discussions between countries continue in
order to take forward the achievements of the
ET2020 Working Group Schools on the
particular challenges and opportunities related
to quality assurance, especially as regards
generating, interpreting and using data at
different levels and related capacity-building;
> The impact of this work is monitored in
order to assess its usefulness in policy
development and guide future co-operative
work;
Recommendations on quality assurance are
coherent with other recommendations on the
governance of school education;
At national level:
> New quality assurance approaches should start
from the strengths of schools and school
education systems and be developed and
monitored from there;
> In considering new approaches, it is useful to
make some tactical planning, particularly in
being prepared for the reaction of stakeholders
and that:
• A stronger, two-way dialogue between
stakeholders should be envisaged, particularly
regarding data;
• Incentives for teachers and school leaders to
be 'agents of change' should be considered
along with a strategy for generating a culture
of trust;
• Schools outside of the mainstream system
should be involved in this dialogue and the
specific needs of alternative pedagogical
approaches should be taken into account.
> School self-evaluation should be strengthened,

including capacity-building for school leaders
and teachers; learning from other sectors that
have regularly engaged in internal monitoring;
and developing tools where appropriate;
> The role of school inspectorates should be to
facilitate improvement for example through
follow-up with schools in identified needs and
through disseminating good practices.
> Coherence of quality assurance mechanisms
with other relevant policies should be ensured.
> Countries should take a forward-looking
perspective: not dwelling on past needs but
acting towards a vision of the future.

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Quality Management in Educational Units

Regional Department of Education Pazardzhik, Bulgaria

Debates on the quality of education at

Do we have a quality school? Do we want a

Particularities of Quality Management in

Efficiency and quality of education are

"The pedagogical concept of quality in

The concept of total quality management

4) Ending the practice of conducting business on cost alone,

The second fundamental tenet pertaining to

The third fundamental tenet is that the

New Standard of the Management System for

The quality of education will always depend

Quality as a Measure of Effectiveness in

The dimensions of quality are divided into two

To attain and sustain national, regional, or

Quality assurance for school development

On the boundary between the two areas, a new discipline

• Reforming school and academic management

Guiding Principles for policy development on

5. SHARED UNDERSTANDING AND

Many countries incorporate evaluations that

Increasingly, national governments are shifting greater

> School self-evaluation should be strengthened,

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