In groups of two or three discuss the following points and report back to the class on your major conclusions.

1. Is it possible for a foreign language teacher from Belarus to start an academic career in the US? Will you face a problem of quality standards?

2. After you have answered the questions above, discuss whether it is easy or difficult to meet the professional requirements to become a public school teacher in the USA.

3. What level of knowledge and skills should you have to become a New York State public school teacher? How will it be evaluated and measured?

PRE-READING ACTIVITIES

Vocabulary enrichment

Make sure you can explain in your own words what the following words and word-combinations mean.

business

client

customer group

customer-first approach

debate

educational institution

government stricture

indicators of quality

information age

knowledge revolution

leadership

paramount

philosophy

practice of education

priority

product

pronouncement

quality

quality in perception

quality movement

rhetoric

service industry

simplistic

standard

standard of education

to assure

to collide

to empower

READING ACTIVITIES

Skim the following text first. Then read it in more depth.

THE MESSAGE OF QUALITY: EDUCATION AND ITS CUSTOMERS

Quality is nowadays, quite rightly, a high priority and has become almost the very stuff of the education debate. But while the novelty may have worn off, the need to understand how to assure quality in education remains. It is an interesting question whether quality in education is really understood.

So while many of us may feel that we are now all part of the quality movement, there is still a huge gap between the rhetoric and real understanding. The philosophies of the pioneers of the quality movement, Deming, Juran and Crosby, have not been translated very accurately into the practice of education. Do we really believe that quality is about improving students’ learning, empowering teachers, supporting teamwork, providing leadership or that in pursuit of quality we are driving out fear in our institutions? Today quality has become synonymous with the latest government stricture on standards, examination success, school performance, or part of the latest party political pronouncements on education before an election.

In education, as in business, quality is difficult to define and measure, but its absence is all too often obvious. Quality in education systems is not just about the difference between the excellent and the ordinary, or indeed between success and failure - although these are crucial, if sometimes simplistic, indicators of quality. Given the wide differences of context and aims, the pursuit of quality itself is important. Moreover, the ability to change is essential in all sectors of education.

The knowledge revolution has brought about rapid advances in technology. It has changed the way we work and think and is changing learning. To cope with the information age every person requires a high standard of education.

Quality can be defined as that which satisfies and exceeds customers' needs and wants. This is sometimes called quality in perception. Quality can be said to be in the eyes of the beholder. This is a very important and powerful definition, and one that any institution ignores at its peril. It is the consumers who make the judgments on quality.

The idea of the learner as the product misses the complexities of the learning process and the uniqueness of each individual learner. The distinction between a product and a service is important because there are fundamental differences between them that have a bearing on how their quality can be assured.

For the purposes of analyzing quality it is more appropriate to view education as a service industry than as a production process. Once this view is established the institution needs to define clearly the services it is providing and the standards to which they will be delivered. This needs to be carried out in conjunction with all its customer groups, including discussions with governors, parents, and with industry directly or via local education business partnerships.

We have defined education as a provider of services. Its services include advice, tuition, assessment and guidance to pupils and students, their parents and sponsors. The customers — the stakeholders of the service -are a very diverse group and need identifying. If quality is about meeting and exceeding customer needs and wants, it is important to be clear whose needs and wants we should be satisfying.

It is important to say something about the idea of a 'customer' in the context of education. To some educationalists 'customer' has a distinctly commercial tone that is not applicable to education. They prefer to use 'client' instead. Client, with its connotations of professional service, is seen as more appropriate. 'Stakeholder' is another term often used in this context. Others reject all such language and would rather stay with 'pupil' or 'student'. Language is important if an idea is to be acceptable. Some people would make a distinction between clients, who are the primary beneficiaries of the education service, and customers, who pay for it but who may be once removed, such as parents, governors, employers or government. The diversity of customers makes it all the more important for educational institutions to focus on customer wants and to develop mechanisms for responding to them.

The needs and views of the various customer groups, whether they are internal or external, do not always coincide, especially in large and complex institutions. One of the best methods of resolving different interests is to recognize their existence and to look for the core of issues that unite the various parties. Quality and justice go hand in hand. This is particularly the case when, dealing with complaints, which are instances of those critical incidents where it is possible to judge how committed an institution is to a customer-first approach. It is often difficult to ensure that the primary customers' views are paramount. There are strong forces pulling against it, not least those that can be exerted by funding processes and mechanisms. Where the needs of the learner and funding mechanisms collide, it is very difficult for an institution to put its learners first. This is a very difficult issue to resolve and nothing can provide ready answers to it. What it should do is to ensure that the institution's processes keep the learners' views centre stage.

E. Sallis Total Quality Management in Education

POST-READING ACTIVITIES

Say what you’ve learned from the text about:

1. standards of education;

2. education as a service industry;

3. the idea of a 'customer' in the context of education;

4. the customer-first approach in education.