Investigating the quality of governmental and

Non-governmental pre-school centers in Tehran

City based on Total quality management system

AhmadReza Mohammadiyan, student of master

degree in the field of executive management in

Islamic Azad University

Science and research of Alborz Branch

Abstract

Purpose

We are going to investigate the governmental and non-

governmental quality of pre-school centers in Tehran

city based on total quality management (TQM) system

Method

Current search method is as a scientific- comparative

method and it is a applicable and sectional type.

Statistical population of this research is included

of all pre-school centers in Tehran city.

Statistical sampling of this research is included 100

educational centers in five geographical regions as

the north, south, east and west and also the center

of Tehran. In order to determine statistical sampling

, we are used of cluster sampling within some levels.

A questionnaire is designed based on eight indexes as

(supporting, perfect management, strategic planning,

utilization consequences, quality, identifying and

learning the personnel, strengthening personnel and

improving team works, measuring and quality

analysis , quality insurance , customer-oriented) due

to collecting information in the field of executing

total quality management .

All collected data are analyzed by SPSS software 21

version and multiple-variable variance (Manova)

Results

Findings show that there is a significant difference

between governmental and non-governmental pre-schools

based on multiple-variable analysis. p<0.05

The results of multiple-variable variances show that

there is a significant difference among the result of

the average sampling. So we could conclude that

private learning centers in Tehran from integral

quality management perspective have good position

rather than governmental centers.

Key words: quality evaluation, pre-school educational

centers, total quality management system

Introduction

Schools as a social system could deliver effective

students to the society via inputs and processes. So

these processes should be managed well. It means that

all activities in the school should be followed by

the purpose of default detecting and eliminating them

because this act would improve the quality of

products continuously. A question which could be

raised here is that what is this product? Whether

this product is the result of an educational process

such as acquired scores of students during the year,

the number of graduated students, the number of

people who received certification?

If we look at the education beyond the macro

perspective, we should try to improve the

consequences of educational flows. So we should not

limit the quality improving to the limited and small

results. We should consider to increasing social

effects of students in the society so we should

follow our aims as improving the quality of the

school , increasing individual confidence in the

society and self-orietned. (Mohmmad, 2014)

There are hot issues based on selecting one school in

accordance with this line and its effects on the

competition among schools based on the quality of

education and training all over the world. (Kamron

1996, Haksbi ,2012)

If this plan would be accepted or not, according to

the experimental evidences , the competition could be

effective on the quality of a school but this factor

is not be able to improve the quality by itself. For

example, the evidences show that the competition

level between governmental and non-governmental

schools is increasing but on the other hand, this

phenomena has not any effects on the quality

improvement. (Anderson, 2007)

Providing a unified definition for the quality

concept is difficult. In theory, all collections as

being healthy, being suitable, desired

sustainability, customer satisfaction, prevent from

any damages and etc are defined as the quality. As an

integral look, the quality in educational

organizations is as an approach for moving toward

fundamental values in educational space and continues

improvement.(Ahanchiyan, 2013)

Since 1950s up to now, the quality has been growing

and it is considered by all service providers and

their customers. By technical and scientific progress

in expectation century, today the customers are not

satisfied with any goods or services as same as the

past. So all organizations which are not be able to

meet needs and customer's expectations, could not be

accepted. (Miklani 2012)

In Iran, there is a wide-range of schools under

education and training discipline. The number of

these schools arriving to 13 types. (Ahanchiyan ,

2013)

Of course, this number is not cleared exactly and we

do not know that "whether the variety of schools is

derived of educational and training discipline due to

improving the competition among schools or not? but

we expect that non-governmental schools could be able

to design and control their plans for increasing the

quality level rather than governmental schools.

In the management issues especially since 20

century , a lot of models and different theories are

presented that each of them could be useful in its

place. Therefore, different managerial methods are

executed due to utilizing of sources and facilities

in order to improve the customer's satisfaction.

Among these models, total quality management is more

effective. This managerial system based on Deming,

jouran and all is proving other integral patterns in

quality and quantity fields and improving the

organization, cooperation patterns … (Ghodos, 1995)

However, considering to the quality and total quality

management is not only limited to the manufacturing

organization. Not by considering to these

explanations, we ask this important question that how

is the quality of governmental and non-governmental

pre-schools in Tehran city based on total quality

management (TQM)?

Total Quality Management (TQM)

TQM is an improved commercial method. TQM is a proved

technique due to ensure of sustainability in

competition world. TQM is an individual and

organizational process that its aim is increasing the

satisfaction level among all people who are related

to the organization such as customers, providers and

stakeholders or personnel. TQM is made of three

worlds as following:

Total as it means overview, Quality as it means top

level of a product or service and Management as it

means attitudes, art, control method or

investigation… (Miklaei, 2012)

So TQM is a type of art which could guide all

elements towards arriving to the top position in the

management.

TQM is a collection of rules and philosophy that it

is as fundamental component for continues

organization progress. TQM is a method that guides

all human sources towards organizational progress for

providing customers needs in the present time or in

the future. (Nejati,2007)

Fundamental principles of TQM

TQM has six fundamental principles

1). Committed and involved management in regards with

continual supporting in all organizational levels

2). Absolute customer orientation from domestic or

foreign customers

3). All personnel would be effective

4). Continued improvement process

5). Beneficial relationship with providers

6).Creating effective measurement criterions

An organization is not be able to execute TQM just

when it improves its product and services quality.

Recognizing this concept is not difficult because

losing some parts of the market, customer's

complaining for having better quality is some signs

of this event.

Of course, sometimes some defaults would be appeared

in reducing the production rate or profit but all of

these problems could be solved by TQM. (kolkarni

2005)

Quality improvement is not only limited to the

production but also it involves all the system due to

preventing from any undesired production or correct

them. It should be noted that TQM could not be

effective in short time and it is not an immediate

approach. It takes time for replacing its principle

and techniques in an organizational culture. TQM

should be transferred to all people and all of them

should create positive behavioral changes in

themselves. This is just one of the consequences of

giving a qualified product to the customer and it

could bring more profit for the organization. (Payel

2015)

Research method

Current search method is as a scientific- comparative

method and it is a applicable and sectional type.

Statistical population of this research is included

of all pre-school centers in Tehran city.

Statistical sampling of this research is included 100

educational centers in five geographical regions as

the north, south, east and west and also the center

of Tehran. In order to determine statistical

sampling, we are used of cluster sampling within some

levels. A questionnaire is designed based on eight

indexes and we investigate it by using of Likert

scale and also we use of Cronbach alpha for measuring

validity of the results. These indexes are as

following:

(supporting, perfect management, strategic planning,

utilization consequences, quality, identifying and

learning the personnel, strengthening personnel and

improving team works, measuring and quality

analysis , quality insurance , customer-oriented)

These indexes are measured as you can see 0.85,0.82,

0.82. 0.79, 0.75, 0.88, 0.86, 0.84 .these data then

are analyzed by SPSS software 21version and multiple-

variable variance (Manova)

Research results

The average and standard deviation are provided in

Table 1 for studying all variables of governmental

and non-governmental pre-school educational centers.

Each of these variables are considered based on

standard form for measuring. Of course, it should be

noted that these scores from MIN up to MAX are

related to selected range of strong commitment till

lack of functional capability for each of these

criterions.

Table – 1: the average and standard deviation of

scores between the groups of governmental and non-

governmental pre-school educational centers in Total

quality management

GovernmentalNon-

governmental

Theoreti

cal

scores

Standar

d

averagStandar

d

averagmaxminCriterions

deviati

on

edeviati

on

e

2.4113.153.1716.5200Supporting

and perfect

leadership

3.328.752.1212.45150Strategic

planning

8.0623.129.2535.51400Customer

orientation

2.168.754.0814.20150Identifying

and

personnel

training

5.3811.944.0812.14150Strengthing

personnel

1.719.192.2113.71150Measuring

and quality

analysis

8.4717.437.0523.19300Quality

insurance

17.726.2014.3146.78300Quality and

utilization

consequence

s

49.58105.3846.27174.482000Total

Table 1 shows the average and standard deviation

among two groups. As you can see, the highest average

is referred to the private centers and all subscale

in this group have high average rather than

governmental centers. In order to statistical compare

and assumption test, we have investigated all pre-

assumption with variances by Leven test and

covariance box test. According to these findings, all

pre-assumptions are approved in both groups. But this

test was not significant for each of variables. The

result of M test in Box Test approved all homogeneity

covariance pre-assumptions. It means that there is

no significant difference among covariance from

statistical perspective. By considering to these

findings, using of parametric tests is possible.

Table 2- results of multiple-variable variance among

two groups of governmental and non-governmental pre-

schools in educational centers in Total quality

management

VariablesAverage

squares (MS)

FSig (P)

Supporting and

perfect leadership310.142.860.030

Strategic planning134.2215.850.001Customer

orientation121.4114.210.001

Identifying and

training personnel153.0833.470.001

Improving

personnel and team

works

149.6321.180.001

Measuring and

quality analysis121.413.290.040

Quality insurance127.2915.450.001Quality and

utilization

consequences

346.3321.720.001

Table 2 shows the result of multiple-variable

variance (Manova) on quality management and its

components in governmental and non-governmental pre-

schools educational centers. As you can see , there

is a significant relationship between the average

scores of all variables.

Discussion and conclusion

Educational discipline of Iran has many challenges in

financial provision, delivery, efficiency, quality ,

educational plan and human resource. Most of these

challenges are due to lack of sufficient financial

source . on the other hand, according to the

government's policy, there is no way for solving

these problems. Because in practice, we could see

that educational discipline is not as the highest

priority in businesses list of the government. During

two last decades , private sector was an important

role in non-governmental schools. Despite this fact,

the student' share of this part never arrived to the

10% of total reports. So it could not have any

significant effect in solving education and training

challenges. Now implementing private- government

cooperation mechanisms based on a suitable

administrated- legal framework could be as an

effective approach for revealing from these problems.

A general perspective towards this ministry shows

that it could covers about 14 million and 400000

students and it is as one of the biggest governmental

collection. But it has yet many problems such as lack

of financial sources. According to the formal

statistical reports of vice president of strategic

planning and monitoring (2009) , public budget rate

of the government in 2003 was about 441621 billion

rials that it is increased to 903337 billion rials in

budget law of 2010 based on annual mean growing of

19.7% within fourth development plan.

This shows that public budget of the government

during the first four years of the fourth plan was

near two times of the previous rate. The credit which

was assigned to the education and training in 2003 is

69458 billion rials and this rate based on annual

average growth as 8.9%, increased to 89819 billion

rials in the budget law of 2010. Credit share of

education and training from the governmental budget

in 2003 was about 15.7% that this rate based on

budget law in 2010 it had negative growth of 14.2%

and it is reduced to the 9.9%.

This negative growth shows that only in educational

infrastructure, there are yet approximately 122000

non-standard classes and 1260000 classes that they

are not suitable at all.

It is more than two decades that non-governmental

schools are implemented as private- governmental

mechanism in Iran. This mechanism only could cover

about 1100000 students in 15800 non-governmental

schools. Based on statistical reports from this

ministry (2011), non-governmental was included only

7.7% of students during 2010-2011.

On the other hand, dispersion investigating shows

that the non-governmental schools in urban areas is

99.3% and in rural areas is about 0.07%. 67% of non-

governmental schools in urban areas are included 9

affluent provinces (Azarbaijan sharghi, Isfahan,

Khuzestan, Fars, Tehran, Mazandaran, Gillan, Kerman)

(2010

The findings of this research show that experts

believe that operational contracts are in high level

of priorities. These operational plans refer to the

school improvement in poor cities or villages and

poor students in the educational service. Studying

share and cooperation mechanism in the world show

that the most important part of private education are

based on poor families in cities or villages

(especially rural girls). (Jafari , 2010)

Most of countries such as Pakistan, India,

Indonesia , some African countries have shown a

mechanism that their private schools by receiving low

tuition could give the best services to poor

families. (Larok 2008)

Education and training in Iran has encountered with

lots of quality demands and challenges such as lack

of financial provision , inefficiency , lack of

educational covering as 100% , insufficient

infrastructure, low quality. The results of this

research show hat experts by emphasizing on lack of

choice right and inefficiency in financial source

consumption as the main challenge, they focus on the

managerial contracts as the main mechanism for this

problem.

On the other hand, Non-governmental schools also

could not provide sufficient motivation for

encouraging the private sector due to investing on

this part. So some educational challenges such as

inequality for using of educational facilities and

lack of complete educational service are remained in

these regions. But rich families in the cities are

considered more. Some critics believed that these

mechanism cause inequality in educational discipline

for students. It meant that while other rich families

could use of these schools easily but this privilege

is not provided for poor families in the villages.

On the other hand, charitable organizations

especially donors for building schools are active

just in educational infrastructure. They build about

half of the number of schools each year in Iran.

Despite the importance of educational infrastructure,

experts by comparing private and public sector

believe that infrastructure contractions could be as

a solution for infrastructure challenges in

educational discipline. They think that this approach

could be a suitable way for considering and solving

some problems such as lack of sufficient space.

However donors and charitable association have an

active role in this field. Generally, educational-

economical experts believe that freedom of choice is

the main criterion for arriving to the successful

achievement s in private-public cooperation and it is

as a gate for facilitation of obtaining other

criterions. But this development needs to

managerial , operational and educational contracts.

These priorities from educational- economical

expert's perspective by considering to the social-

economical position of Iran are based on an accepted

education and training discipline.

Findings and total scores in both groups as 174.48,

105.38 and the results of multiple-variable variance

(Manova) for all components show that there is a

significant difference between these two groups and

non-governmental schools are in high level so it

means that these type of schools by deep commitment

and long term perspective have an active role in

quality improvement and utilization. Obtained

privilege for governmental schools show that these

centers are limited with various and different plans

in quality improvement and utilizing growth, so it is

necessary that we move from planning steps to real

execution for achieving essential – practical

results.

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