The period before the 1990s represents the initiation of major moves towards managerial change in higher education. In the two distinct sectors – Universities and Further Education establishments – quality was managed in a control sense, as a means of ensuring the basic standards. Their approaches to management of quality were unique (Becher et al., 1978).

The further education sector, typified by Polytechnics or Community Colleges, met the community needs in the practice of various trades. An inspectorate carried out periodic inspections of academic functions, much on the lines of contemporary industry practice, which was deemed sufficient to meet quality requirements. The direct consequence of this was a steady loss of motivation to improve quality (Becher et al. (1978, p. 133) described inspection as “change inhibitor”).

But in spite of the similar emphasis on inspection, there were very substantial differences between industry's and further education's approach quality control. In industry, the controllers were a part of the establishment, to “assure” the fault free functioning of the products. Whereas, despite the regularity of inspections, the inspectorate remained a government arm, and educational institutions never established quality control units (Becher et al., 1978, pp. 137-40). The academic freedom was considered sacrosanct, and quality control was only a marginal aspect of further education. In the same vein, universities asserted their academic freedom even further, and there was no provision for any external inspection, except for some formal reporting mechanisms (Bird in Shattock, 1996, pp. 253-4). Thus, the attitude of the higher education institutions was characterised by a strong aspiration for autonomy, even in the face formal inspection procedures of the government. To the institutions quality was only meaningful in the context of academic freedom.

Meanwhile, with the surge in demand for workers in the “knowledge economy” in 1980s, the artificial distinctions in the binary system of higher education began to breakdown, and in early 1990s further education sector assumed an equal status with universities, marking the beginning of an integrated higher education sector.

Since the early 1970s principles of quality management (QM) began to gain wide acceptance in industry. QM provided a new basis for believing that, given proper worker morale, quality and cost could have an inversely proportional relationship, whereby cost drops even with a consistent increase in quality. This is based on the power of empowerment, which is supposed to cut through waste of all forms (Oakland, 1990, chapter 4). With rapidly expanding numbers in 1980s, this aspect began to be perceived as a key issue in higher education as well. The questions were not only on how to maintain quality but also how it can be enhanced in order to tackle increasing complexity of knowledge with minimal increment in costs.

As these concerns were placed squarely on the agenda in higher education, it moved to follow the industry lead in quality management. From the early 1990s onwards the emphasis was shifted to formal assessments of quality in higher education to spur the institutions to adopt formal systems of quality management on the lines of businesses rather than the traditional loose regulation or indirect controls (Brennan and Shah, 2000). In comparison to the industry, in higher education sector there have been more strident criticisms of the theoretical compatibility of quality management to education. Hence in order to come up with a more effective model for Quality in Higher Education one has to carry out a renewed exploration around issues unique to quality in higher education (e.g. Kezar and Eckel, 2000).

Ideally, any model for management in any organisation can only succeed, if it represents the shared values of the stakeholders (Senge et al., 2000: p.162-3 (here and throughout)). Table II shows the criteria for quality of the four major stakeholder groups in higher education. The criteria identified seem to cover the four out of five distinct ways in which quality is interpreted in the higher education debate, according to Harvey and Green (1993). The fifth interpretation – quality as “transformation” of students – is argued (Harvey and Green, 1993) as a meta-quality concept, which subsumes the other ones. In other words, when students are transformed, it exceeds the providers' basic expectation of “value for money”, meets the requirement of “excellence” from students, satisfies the “fitness of purpose” for a competent service to employers, and attests to the motivation in staff through “consistent” policies. Therefore interpretation of quality as transformation is central to the development of educationally-oriented models to quality in higher education.

There have been several re-examinations of fundamental educational processes and various new models have been proposed for educational quality in universities. Duke (1992) proposed a learning university model to exhort the universities to adopt a new paradigm to deal with the rapidly changing times to operate against a background of discontinuity and uncertainty. Harvey and Knight (1996) proposed a Transformative Model as the most appropriate learning-oriented approach to quality. The emphasis is on “enhancing participants”, “adding value” to their capability and ultimately “empowering” them (Harvey and Knight, 1996, pp. 40-1). Haworth and Conrad (1997, p. xii) develop an Engagement Model of programme quality organised around the “central idea (of) student, faculty and administrative engagement in teaching and learning”. In the University of Learning model, Bowden and Marton (1998) examine the organisational characteristics of higher education from a pedagogical perspective to facilitate a dynamic learning process and derive the attributes of a “University of Learning”. Tierney (1998; 1999) collated the views of a number of leading authors on a model for excellence: “a responsive university”. The emphasis is on the development of new internal and external relationships through communication and partnerships.

Apart from the proposals for models for quality in higher education from an educational perspective as above, there have been a number of contributions to enhance different aspects of management of educational quality by several authors. They have either looked at ways of improving delivery of teaching and learning (e.g. Stephenson and Yorke (1998); Mitchell (ed., 1998); Dart&Boulton-Lewis (eds, 1998) and Leigh-Smith and McCann (eds, 2001)), or at adopting conducive management methodologies (e.g. Van Patten (2000); Lucas et al. (2000); Brennan et al. (eds, 1999) and Ruben (2004)). Later in the paper, when some aspects of a model for higher education are discussed these works will be cited to enrich the discussion.

The discussions in the section lends credence to the authors' position that a fresh approach is necessary to develop models for quality in higher education, as the debate is currently narrowly focussed, essentially around adapting industrial quality systems to higher education. As discussed earlier in the section quality management has still to be the broad management methodology but it should be more flexibly adapted to educational processes. QM as adapted to higher education must be made to preserve the traditional values of academic freedom and collegial modes of operation. As flexible approaches are developed, the relationship between administration and academics, and industry and education sectors, could be expected to change from one of antipathy (or apathy, at best) as at present, to one of synergy.

In higher education, there are two distinct types of processes:

1. the services to the student body: in academic (e.g. enrolment, library), or administrative (e.g. Cafeterias, recreation) areas; and
2. the teaching and learning (both education and research) activities.

• the processes are tangible;
• the products are of a narrow range; and
• the processes are customer driven.

• The quality management models are measurement focussed: the core processes of learning are too subtle to be measured meaningfully (Harvey, 1995).
• The product control is crucial for quality management: teaching in higher education is too varied in its products, site delivered, delivery modes, processes and personnel to be controlled.
• Customer focus is the key tenet of quality management models: in higher education the identification of the customers is a critical problem. The customers can variously be students, employers, government etc. (Harvey, 1995).
• In addition, Yorke (1997, p. 148) talks a number of notions of quality management with no equivalence in higher education:
• managerial responsibility for quality;
• the empowerment of staff for quality improvement;
• setting of standards that reflect customer requirements; and
• avoidance of error and minimising variation.

Based on the above discussions we would hypothesise that attempting to implement quality management across all of the operations of a university, is flawed in view of its tenuous fit with teaching and learning. Alternatively, attempting to spell out management models centred on teaching and learning alone would be equally flawed, as university's services are best addressed by quality management systems. Therefore, it is logical to conclude that a generic model for quality in higher education would have to be more complex, to address service and pedagogical aspects uniquely. In such a composite model, quality management addressing the service areas, should be meshed seamlessly with the model addressing the core areas of teaching and learning. Such a synthesis, when implemented, would become a holistic model for quality management in higher education. The prima facie potential of the model, and its characteristics will be explored further in the section.

The educationally-oriented management models for higher education cited in the previous section will be examined to see if they can be described by a generic model. At the outset, two focal points seem to emerge: student learning and a dynamic collaboration around it. All the models emphasise student learning experience as the basis for quality. For example, the “Transformative Model” of Harvey and Knight (1996) requires quality policies to focus on the student learning experience (p.11, Tables I and II). The theory of “Engagement Model” of Haworth and Conrad (1997) maintains its “focus on a … compelling definition of … student learning … as the primary purpose of higher education.” (p.xiv). All the models also emphasise a proactive collaboration in education delivery. For instance, the “University of Learning” (Bowden and Marton,1998, chapter 8) model highlights a synergistic involvement of academics, on what is common and what is complementary. The “Responsive University” (Tierney, Ed, 1998, chapters 3 and 4) model emphasises communication, with new partnerships both internally and externally.

Moreover, transformation of the student, indeed the institution itself, forms the thrust of all the educationally-oriented models. Harvey and Knight (1996, pp. 7-10) emphasise that the essence of quality in education as “Transformation” – a “critical ability” in students, to assess and develop knowledge for themselves. Bowden and Marton (1998, p. 7) give a subtle pedagogic interpretation of transformation as ability in learners to differentiate and focus on the most relevant solution. It is the key task of the programme teams to bring this about. Therefore, it does seem possible to develop a generic approach to management from an educational perspective.

At the implementation level, the QME model is driven by a quality improvement system from the staff-student interface, governed by collegialism and commitment, with senior management support (Harvey and Knight, 1996, chapter 6). These elements, broadly, resemble the thrusts of TQM (Besterfield et al., 1999). The “Engagement Model” (Besterfield, et al., 1999, Chapter 3) seems to elaborately categorise the interactions among “students, faculty and administrators” in enriching the learning experience. Overall, the key features of a Generic Model addressing the Quality Management in Education (QME), can be summarised as:

• a clear focus on “transformation” of the learners;
• a synergistic collaboration at the learning interface; and
• there is a clear role for commitment at all levels supported by senior management.

With the thrust for distinct approaches to service and education areas, there would be two models for quality implemented across the campus: TQM for service areas and QME for educational areas. TQM would focus on the students clearly as the customers, and QME implemented in the teaching functions focus would be on the attribute of their learning determined by:

• global content and resources governing the curriculum design; and
• subtle parameters of delivery governing the “enhancement” of learner.

An important issue is how to develop an organisational climate conducive to the adoption of the models. Harvey and Knight (1996, p. 68) characterise the original governing culture enshrined in higher education as “collegialism” based on shared decision making, integrity and commitment to knowledge. Boyer re-interpreted (1987) this into several ideal community characteristics as a basis for the development of “learning communities” in the campus (Lieberman and Wehlburg, 2001). Staff and academics should work with students to develop new learning experiences to develop the community characteristics. Such organisation behaviour norms are fundamental prerequisites for implementing the holistic model.

The basis for implementation of the model should be a “shared vision” developed within the community, after an extensive dialogue. Implemented in the right spirit, the holistic model has the potential for building synergy between educational and organisational theories in educational institutions.

Quality has to be a natural expression of capability in the workplace. Quality in learning centres on enabling students to engage in effective actions, in increasingly uncertain future. A quality system for education has to enshrine this characteristic in all of its programmes (Bowden and Marton, 1998, pp. 277-287). Based on a preliminary synthesis carried out in the previous section, the core features of the generic model was summarised as follows:

• A clear focus on “transformation” of the learners (and the institution): Transformation involves cognitive transcendence, engaging with the meaning of the subject, not just with relevant information (Harvey and Knight, 1996, pp. 120-34).
• A synergistic collaboration at the learning interface: high quality programmes are anchored in collegial and supportive cultures that invite widespread involvement. (Haworth and Conrad, 1997, chapter 5).
• A significant commitment to improve learning: It is of critical importance to create tangible mechanisms to preserve the commitment in order to stimulate progress (Tierney, 1999, pp. 94-96).

Critical transformative learning represents an integrative approach. Assessment is to be the focus of the learning experience. The students should be supported and challenged into risk taking ventures to wrestle with their profession in new and creative ways. The students are able to articulate why a different approach is to be taken in different contexts, and decide on which aspects of the concept are relevant to a particular context. It leads to metacognition: knowledge, awareness and control of one's own learning. (Bowden and Marton, 1998, pp. 161-162; Tang in Dart and Boulton-Lewis, Eds, 1998, chapter 5)

Employers are looking for graduates with a potential to transform organisations. This requires skills that transcend disciplinary knowledge, into their application of problem solving in different domains. Employers “are not always satisfied that universities made a good job of fostering the skills” (Harvey and Knight, 1996, pp. 127 and 47). At issue is essentially a case of fragmentation, i.e. a lack of transformed knowledge. It is necessary for learning to focus on the relations within the content fields and between content and context. Hence curriculum development should be about establishing a balance between the “professional and disciplinary frameworks of knowledge” (Bowden and Marton, 1998, p. 258).

As learners are transformed in higher education, it would directly address and even exceed the “value for money” criteria of the funding bodies and the community at large. Students, both current and prospective would see their interpretation of quality as “excellence” being fully met by the transformative learning provided by the institution. Transformative learning can only take place in an institution as a result of commitment by the staff who see their view of quality as “Perfection” being fully addressed by the institution. Thus, it is seen that achievement of transformative learning in an institution fully meets all of the stakeholders' expectations of quality.

The expenditures and revenues per student in academe have gone in opposite directions during the past 20 years. Currently, with decreasing overall funding in universities student learning experiences are driven by economics than pedagogy. As a result, the patterns of instructional practices in a number of areas of academe have not changed over a century. (Benjamin and Carroll in Tierney, Ed, 1998, pp. 92-93). Overall, the course delivery is teacher-centred and content-oriented, not student-centred and learning-oriented. This is a transmissive, not a transformative type of learning (Kember in Dart and Boulton-Lewis, Eds, 1998, p. 13). Therefore, universities, as institutions, are in dire need of transformation before we even begin to discuss the transformation of its subjects – the students.

In a university, as in other successful and creative establishments, there is a need for a shared awareness of common goals that make it a collective, rather than an assembly of multiple units. This fosters trust among its members. Such a collective consciousness emerges when different people are conscious of the same phenomenon – or objects of knowledge – from a variety of perspectives and are conscious to a greater or lesser extent of each other's ways of seeing. It makes it a flexible dynamic organisation as is necessary for matching an increasingly changing environment (Bowden and Marton, 1998, chapter 8; Senge et al., 2000, chapter IX).

The university should move from rituals of teaching, to commitment to learning. The fundamental challenge is to bring about a paradigm shift in the notion of teaching being a routine and subsidiary task, to a key performance indicator. The emphasis should be on collegial processes, which ultimately should become the cultural norm within the institution. (Harvey and Knight, 1996, pp. 156-9). For this to happen, the leadership in a high performance institution should show unique characteristics. Leadership needs to be exerted at multiple levels in multiple manners – in an aligned way from the institutional to the multiple academic and service delivery levels. Leadership has been described simply as a practical and everyday process of supporting, coordinating, developing, and inspiring colleagues (Ruben, 2004, pp. 298-306). Judging from the current gaps between the ideal and reality, it appears inevitable that the traditional university structures will have to undergo profound changes. In those changes lie future opportunities for higher education.

Meaningful learning outcomes are more likely as teaching is focussed on discovering students' ways of seeing a phenomenon. Then they form an awareness of their own knowledge development. This would allow them to form a strategy for their learning. This is a deeper approach to learning. (Kember in Dart and Boulton-Lewis (Eds), 1998, chapter 1). Teachers learn from students as well as vice versa, forming a collective consciousness. This probably is the most efficient pedagogy because the process enriches the understanding of both the teacher and the taught (Bowden and Marton, 1998, chapter 8).

Good teaching involves: integrating three aspects of competence: practice, disciplinary knowledge and generic (e.g. communication) attributes, through explicit goals, curriculum balance between content and understanding, and a range of assessment methods. The academic role will be more complex and will include lecturing, facilitating, coaching and designing customised learning experiences in order to stimulate learning. Overall, the list gives meaning to being “student centred” (Haworth and Conrad, 1997, chapter 3).

The alternative to the economy-driven drift is the use of technology in teaching and learning. Various forms of open, flexible learning environments are used, involving computers in the learning process. However, it is unlikely that the broad range of objectives of university education can be achieved by information technology alone. The system is both technologically and pedagogically more complex, and without a dedicated team involvement, could easily become ineffective. Without a map or compass that provides the organisation with a strategy, technologies mindlessly speed up processes, which are in need of reform. The emphasis has to be on innovation, not on automation (Courtney in Lieberman and Wehlburg (Eds), 2001, pp. 232-52).

The locus of operation of the organisation and management of learning should ideally be at a combination of three levels: departmental, education programme and university. With the quality of student learning as the central criterion, the responsibility for any aspect of the programme should be placed where the expertise exists. For a start, a team of academics who teach in the programme, say, the Programme Team, would undertake the curriculum development function and plan the programme delivery. The academics of the Programme Team would be members of separate departments based on their discipline speciality. The Programme Team acts as a natural bridge between the integrated programme and the separate departments.

The core outcome required from the university is one of building capabilities in students for engaging in effective action in all domains of knowledge. This requires people having expertise within different domains of knowledge as well as in how knowledge is formed within those domains. There is a need for building an epistemological infrastructure to develop insights into such studies on knowledge formation (Bowden and Marton, 1998, pp. 281-90). Such units should contribute to improving the university's understanding of itself and nurtures learning.

The nature of the assessment system experienced by students has a marked effect on how students approach learning. Any assessment system developed to test learning performance should reflect the full range of purposes for which the programme was developed. Ideally, teaching and assessment should not be separated at all; on the contrary, making judgements is an integral part of the teaching and learning process (Harvey and Knight, 1996, chapter 8). Summative assessment, whose aim is only to verify that a particular standard is reached, “ … a bit like autopsy. The intent is establishing cause, not enhancing process” (Tierney, 1999, p. 34).

Hence assessment of learning is arguably the most significant of factors affecting transformation. It ought to be carefully planned by the Programme Team to provide feedback to improve learning of both the students and the teachers. (Haworth and Conrad, 1997, chapter 3). Tangible product requirements to connect knowledge and practice together, in ways that contribute meaningfully to their fields, should be implemented. These exercises help the students to develop a “big-picture” perspective on their professions (Haworth and Conrad, 1997, pp. 134-42). Overall, the university needs to have a clear and adequate assessment policy given the focus on learning for the unknown. Ultimately, a well-rounded assessment policy is seen as an excellent strategy for an institution to assert its academic freedom. After all, “to have a strategy is to put own intelligence, foresight and will in charge, instead of outside forces and disordered concerns” (Tierney, 1999, p. 145).

A quality system can be seen as having two aspects: improvement and accountability through assurance. The focus should be on improvement with accountability being a consequence. If improvement is addressed properly, the evidence for accountability will be developed automatically. An evidence- based approach to quality improvement is required if a university is to attend to both accountability and improvement (Hittman in Seymour et al., 1996, chapter 13, Vol. 1). The choices for making learning improvements should be informed by educational theory and technical support systems. There is a need for all academics, who teach into a programme to communicate with each other and collectively to address the improvement process, hence the need for Programme Teams. They must be able to provide ongoing summative evidence that the students have had a coherent learning experience (Marchese in Ruben, 1995, chapter 10).

The focus is on Programme Teams with academics working together to continually improve quality of teaching and learning. The main guiding principle for quality assessment is collecting relevant and trustworthy evidence for informed decisions. Each Programme is audited every five years internally. The internal audits should also result in an institutional quality report. This would be the Institution's own self-critical and analytical overview of quality improvement. The approach is transformative, improvement driven, empowering, effective and sensitive. Above all, the system allows academics to improve quality and generate a record by simply doing better what they are doing anyway (Haworth and Conrad, 1997, chapter 9; Bowden and Marton, 1998, pp. 240-244)

Basis for the development of the model:

• the model is generic for educational quality in higher education; and
• the methodology for managing quality: synthesis of several models and techniques in educational literature.

• focus on “transformation” of the learners (and the institution);
• a synergistic collaboration at the learning interface; and
• a significant commitment, by the institution and individuals.

• development of a collective consciousness; and
• Teaching is a key performance indicator.

• focussed on discovering students' ways of seeing;
• focussed on developing multiple perspectives (variation) with discrimination;
• Programme Team plans curriculum, programme delivery and resources; and
• Building of an epistemological infrastructure for insights into knowledge formation.

• focus on learning for the unknown;
• assessment across the full range of objectives;
• formative assessment must be an essential feature;
• emphasis to be on novel approaches to learning;
• provides a supportive challenging environment; and
• tangible product requirements to connect knowledge and practice.

• the focus should be on improvement of students' learning experience; and
• learning improvements should be informed by educational theory.

• the focus is on Programme Teams, audited every five years internally; and
• annual Institutional report is made: analytical overview of quality improvement.

Together the items spelt the model seem to develop a clear agenda to address both the institutional and pedagogical fronts. Despite this, given the extensive scope of higher education, the model only establishes a prima facie basis for the development of a comprehensive model for quality in higher education. It is our hope that at least it represents a clear beginning towards a new direction in higher education management.

The main challenge to the institution in implementing the model is to develop patterns of interaction and governance to nurture the core values. For the purpose of TQM, there is an extensive literature dealing with such issues (e.g. Besterfield et al., 1999). Equally the extensive literature identified in educational quality areas were used to broadly identify the features of QME in the previous section. Hence, the implementation of the comprehensive model covering both the education and service delivery aspects in the campus – the Holistic Model, should synergistically use the techniques from both areas to emphasise the core values.

For the purpose of monitoring the performance of the system in the institution, it was identified that the central focus should be on quality improvement in both learning and service areas. Also, the importance of a conducive organisational culture was stressed earlier as essential background to bringing about change. The emerging practices of learning communities was presented as an ideal fit with the norms of higher education institutions. Hence it is imperative that institutions consider a range of projects based on learning communities as precursor to wide-ranging changes for institutional transformation.

The main objective of the holistic model was identified as quality improvement in higher education institutions. The core values to be nurtured in engendering it are represented by commitment, collaboration and transformation. The three values form a causal loop, whereby increased commitment would facilitate increased collaboration, and which, in turn, would manifest in effective transformation leading to improved quality outcomes. In addition, the three core values are attitudinal, held in the intrinsic belief systems of the members of the organisation. Therefore, the three values represent the main elements of the potential domain of enduring change within the organisation as shown in Figure 2 for the holistic model for quality in higher education.

The domain of actions to engender the domain of enduring change is represented by the triangle in the Figure 2. The generic features of the actions would be the same as the generic model for learning (Figure 1) as we are looking for a set of actions which would inspire a positive belief system to bring about an enduring change. The guiding ideas represent the overarching sense of direction or purpose shared within the community. The theory, methods and tools represent the opportunities extended to people to develop the new skills and capabilities required for improved quality outcomes. Innovations in infrastructure represent the resources the institution makes available for people to improve the quality in their work. It could span a broad range of organisational and operational initiatives in social architecture (Senge et al., 1994, pp. 15-47). Overall, the management, in attempting to implement the holistic model, continually seeks to reinvigorate the action elements in the domain of action, in order to be able to motivate quality improvements to happen.

Overall, senior managements' approach to implementation of the holistic model in an institution must be to focus attention on all the three areas of the domain of action (in Figure 2) and address all of them simultaneously. They must also monitor the progress of the quality system by monitoring tangible improvements in their operations, which should serve as reasonable feedback.

Most powerful guiding ideas for implementing change must emerge from a universal groundswell for fundamental changes in higher education. At about the turn of the last century, in 1998 (see Lueddeke, 1999), 4,000 delegates from 182 nations attending a United Nations Education, Social and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) sponsored conference, declared the need for a new vision for higher education which called for in-depth reforms. A holistic model would ideally be a vehicle for pursuing such national aspirations.

Guiding principles for transformational change result from conversation and consensus building based on the quality principles, which underpin the holistic model. The focus of all activities should centre around the student and their level of learning. The discussions should touch the heart of questions like: “what leads us to create … systems … where teaching is not taken seriously, in spite of rhetoric to the contrary?” (Lueddeke, 1998, p. 112); Despite the investment of time, the power of the development of guiding ideas results from the process of developing them (Senge et al., 2000). The conversations allow people to loosen tightly-held assumptions that facilitate “sense-making”. Sense-making plays a central role in effecting transformation. “ … transformational change … alters organisational structures, affects organisational assumptions and ideologies, and is a collective, institution-wide undertaking” (Eckel and Kezar, 2003, p. 39). Transformation calls for a collective interpretation: what are we about? Who we are? What is important? What are our priorities? “Educational practice must be informed by critical reflection,” characterised by “contemplative conversations”(Senge et al., 2000, pp. 317-8).

The synergy among theories, methods and tools lies at the heart of any endeavour that truly builds knowledge. This is the primary engine of progress in practice fields. Some of the theoretical constructs, on which the holistic model is based, are examined below along with appropriate tools and methodologies that could be used in their implementation.

As a basis for efficacy of the pedagogical process, the education model, QME, uses a number of sources. The engagement theory of programme quality by Haworth and Conrad (1997) is characterised by 17 key attributes. The subtle cognitive aspects of learning are explored in great detail by Bowden and Marton (1998). Stephenson and Yorke (1998) provide a comprehensive theory for developing capability in students. These provide the community of scholars in higher education with a variety of ways of bringing about transformative education. It then becomes a matter for the individual Programme Teams to make choices about the approaches based on the subject matter.

Service delivery revolves around designing processes to suit customer requirements and monitoring them. A range of methodologies and tools are associated with the area of assuring quality of service. A number of tools are used in the area, like: idea creation, process analysis, cause analysis, etc. They make it possible to collect, visualise, analyse, and interpret information to improve a process (Freed et al., 1997, pp. 5-90). As the practice of service quality improvement takes a strong hold, eventually some linkages could be identified for the tools with the academic processes as well.

The aim is to develop and improve infrastructural mechanisms so that people have the resources that they need to build new skills. According to Senge et al. (1994, p. 35) “Until people can make their “work space” a learning space, learning will always be a “nice idea” – peripheral, not central.” In the following paragraphs a number of examples are explored on these lines.

The creation of the “Programme Team” was mentioned earlier which should design, deliver, monitor and be fully resourced to run the individual programmes. The purpose of this innovation in infrastructure to place the responsibility for any aspect of the programme where the expertise exists. The main rationale for the initiative is to considerably improve the collective consciousness among the academics responsible for the programme.

Another innovation in infrastructure proposed is the internal monitoring of quality improvements in the individual programmes by a central unit in the institution. The initiative foresees building up an active network among Programme Teams within the institution through their connection with the central unit to share good practice. The central unit would also handle the transactions with external auditors, leaving the programme teams to free to concentrate on their programme improvements.

In a similar way, empowerment should be the norm in the service functions of the institution as well. People who work within the system have the most insight into how the system works and how to improve it. Therefore, in all of the facilities areas, an innovation in systemic infrastructure should be that service teams be entrusted with the role of planning and monitoring the transactions. In reality, the more the empowerment, the more the increase in their effectiveness (Freed et al., 1997, pp. 5-90).

The power of the model (Figure 2) is realised when all of the action elements are practised simultaneously. It generates synergies and keeps the institution's focus on learners and their learning. Guiding ideas evoke a trust, which maintains a “constancy of purpose” (Deming, 1986, p. 24) for the institution as a whole. Theory, methods and tools hone the skills of people to face seemingly complex requirements. Innovations in infrastructure create opportunities for streamlining and refining the processes (Senge, et al., 1994, p. 41). Eventually a “…holistic implementation of quality principles creates a culture for academic excellence” in the university (Freed et al., 1997, xiv).