TOTAL QUAUTY MANAGEMENT, VOL. 6, NOS 5&6, 1995 579

The application of Deming's theory of totalquality management to achieve continuousimprovements in education

SvEiN STENSAASEN

University of Oslo, Institute for Educational Research, Oslo, Norway

Abstract The article recognizes the currently growing interest for quality in education, the

importance of Deming's contribution to quality management and indicates that educational and

industrial institutions may not be as different as people seem to think. The main body of the article

deals with how Deming's theory in 14 points may be applied to education. The author presents and

discusses ideas bearing upon how each point may be utilized in educational settings. The intention is

to raise interest for putting the theory to practical use in schools and institutions of higher learning.

Introduction

Although parents, students, teachers and politicians have probably always been interested inresults obtained at school, it is only recently that the quality of education has become an issueof common concern (Glasser, 1992; Granheim et al., 1990; Harris & Baggett, 1993;Murgatroyd & Morgan, 1992; Sallis, 1992; Stones, 1992; Tofte, 1993). Some school qualityissues may be considered as a renewal of the struggle of the pre-war decade between whetherthe school should be led by progressive or by traditional educational ideas, focusing respect-ively on whether to develop healthy and happy students or to stress that the students mustgather knowledge and attain useful results. Nowadays, there is a similar discussion going onbetween adherents of progressive and restorative educational thinking. In this perspective, theDeming theory may serve as a kind of moderator as it is user-oriented, putting the stress onthe learning processes and on providing each student with a healthy development.

Why do I choose Deming's theory of total quality leadership for adaptation to createcontinuous improvements in education?

Deming's theory appeals to me as an educator for several reasons. He provides aprofound understanding of what leadership really deals with by placing people at the veryheart of the theory. The human being comes first in his leadership thinking, and he repeatsover and over again that leaders must treat their people fairly and respectfully and give themsuch working conditions that they may use all their abilities, develop their competences, feelcomfort and enjoy their jobs. He criticizes leaders who do not care for their people:

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580 S. STENSAASEN

Most of the wasteful practices of the prevailing system of management are wrongways to manage people. They begin with grades in school, from toddlers up throughthe university. They lead to the annual appraisal of people on the job, even ofteachers ... and gains from education (Deming, 1991, p. viii).

Moreover, Deming urges leaders to pave the way for cooperation. They should provideopportunities for cooperation, stimulate people to cooperate, and remove system factors thatmay demotivate them from working together in teams.

Further, he stresses that the customer should be of central concern to leaders. The mainobject of improvements is to satisfy the customer's needs and expectations because qualityhas only meaning in terms of the customer. Quality thus means providing the customer witha product or service that fits in with his/her use. The net effect of constant improvements is,Deming (1986, p. 1) holds, not only to reduce waste, decrease cost and increase productivity,but to create conditions where the production worker may experience pride of workmanship.This happens when he feels satisfaction from quality performance.

Lastly, I find the theory valuable because Deming is clear and outspoken as regardsproviding a profound understanding of what goes on during the manufacture of any productor service. This understanding rests on being aware of and recognizing the importance of thesystem, how it works and influences the processes and their outcome. Here he stresses thenecessity of recognizing that variation is part of any process and understanding the infor-mation of variation.

To gain a proper understanding of variation, one must grasp the difference between thetwo causes of variation: common causes and special causes (Deming, 1986, p. 318). Theformer refers to those factors which are inherent parts of the system and create the variationsthat occur in the processes of this system.

A way to gather knowledge of this is to do a simple experiment that stems fromDeming's first teacher of statistics, Walter A. Shewart, who asked his readers to dothis task: Write several letter A's as carefully as possible to make them similar.Observe the letters carefully to detect the variations and you will find that, regardlessof how carefully you wrote the A's, there occurs variations in the letters (Gitlow,1990, p. 3).

There are a number of internal factors operating on a person when writing, causing him/herto write slightly different letters. The other factors that influence a process are called specialcauses because they do not belong to the system, but are introduced from the outside. Specialcauses might, in the writing experiment, be an unsteady table, an ill-functioning pen,disturbing sounds, thunder and other outside factors impinging upon the person who is doingthe writing.

Leaders who do not know how to distinguish between common and special causes ofvariation may make two kinds of mistake:

(1) To attribute to a special cause any outcome, fault, complaint, mistake, breakdown,accident, shortage when it belongs to the system (common cause).

(2) To ascribe to common causes any outcome, fault, complaint, mistake, breakdown,accident, shortage when it actually comes from a special cause (Nolan & Provost,1990).

The potential for making such mistakes is considerable since, according to Deming's (1986,

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p. 315) estimate, no less than 94% of causes belong to the system, leaving 6% as specialcauses.

In my interpretation, the mentioned factors are of importance to education. I think thateducators should recognize that they act as leaders for some of the most important processesin the life of the individual: to socialize students, to help them to acquire theoretical andpractical knowledge, and to help them develop into mature personalities, the kind who areneeded to adapt constructively to a rapidly changing, chaotic society. Educators also oughtto be cognizant of the fact that they are leaders of total human beings, not just teaching themlessons.

There may be objections to mixing theories developed for industrial purposes with thepractice of education. Thus, it may be argued that the human processes of education arequalitatively different from those of manufacturing. Likewise, it may be stated that educationis not competitive and its object is not to achieve a profit. According to such observations,some people may be critical of applying an industrial theory to education. Although industryand education differ, some of their basic processes are surprisingly similar.

What do comparisons show?

In industry it is customary to inspect the finished product and evaluate which pieces are readyto be sold, which must first be repaired, and which must be rejected or scrapped. Often thereis no thought of the underlying reasons for poor production. What do we do in education?We also test, inspect and evaluate such products of education as the students' achievements,and make suggestions for ways to fix flawed reports. When the students finish their education,we evaluate their examination achievements to decide who shall fail or pass and award gradesto the members of the latter group. Both systems tend to be based more or less upon ahit-and-miss, trial-and-error procedure to achieve quality.

Another comparison maintains that educational institutions may be considered asindustries which provide

... service (education). Schools start with a raw material (students), apply a process(teaching) and turn out a finished product (graduates), although there may be somerejects. There are raw material specifications (minimum entrance requirements) andincoming inspections (entrance examinations). There is a process specification(curriculum course outline), process facilities (faculty laboratories, textbooks), pro-cess controls (reports, recitations, quizzes) and final product testing (examination)Quran & Gryna, 1980, p. 10).

An additional common feature is that both education and manufacturing rest on the humanprocesses of communication and understanding, giving and receiving instructions, perceiving,interpreting and applying them, learning and practising, leadership planning and execution.

The factors that I have drawn to the reader's attention in the preceding text are my mainreasons for choosing Deming's theory for adaptation to education. They indicate to me thatit may be sensible to consider it for application to education. The theory has not only provedto be a successful contributor in transforming Japanese industry from producing shoddystandard products to world class leadership in quality (Juran, 1993); it has also, during the1980s and 1990s contributed to helping leaders transform some American business compa-nies firom being in big trouble because of their poor quality products to regaining their vigourby making quality priority number one (Allaire, 1990; Howard, 1992; Kerns & Nadler, 1992;Walton, 1986).

The search for quality in various spheres of life is considered to be as old as mankind

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(Kondo, 1988). Apparently, it is no new phenomenon in organized education either. I thinkthat many educators consider the striving for quality as an ingrained tradition in schools. Itis uncertain, however, to what extent educators apply systematic procedures to ascertain thatthey create learning and working conditions that the students perceive and experience asstimulating and satisfying for their own learning and development. Do some educators thinkthat quality stems directly from the standards of the resources spent on education withoutconsideration of the orchestration of the educational processes?

In my opinion, quality is not something achieved by itself either in industry or ineducation. Nor do I believe that evaluation of schools by external experts will serve to 'assurethe quality of education', as recently proposed by an official committee appointed by theNorwegian Minister of Education (Granheim et al., 1990). I hold that the safe way is to buildquality into the processes and improve them continuously. To do that, knowledge aboutquality, implementation and improvement is needed, combined with sustained hard work.Deming provides a theoretical framework for a quality system that embraces the wholeorganization combined with practical examples and experiences. I assume that it is worth-while to adapt this theory to education. Because of its concern for the individual and totaldevelopment and learning, the theory may contribute to improvement in education as inother spheres of work.

Since educational institutions serve socializing purposes in society, they ought to practisetotal quality leadership so that students may acquire the sort of competence that is needed atpresent in society at large. While the twentieth century has been considered as one ofproductivity, the twenty-first century it is assumed, will be the century of quality Quran,1993, p. 47). To make that prediction become true, it is necessary to start preparing for it atonce.

The Deming theory in 14 points and its application to education

Deming's theory consists of 14 points. I will deal with the theory as I understand it andinterpret it. This understanding is a product of my studies of the theory, of presenting anddiscussing it with classes of advanced students of education at the University of Oslo, and ofinteraction with practising teachers and principals during workshops conducted for them. Myprevious writings in the field (Stensaasen, 1988, 1989a, 1989b-1990, 1989c,d, 1991) as wellas my studies of interpreters of Deming (Mann, 1989; Neave, 1990; Scherkenbach, 1982,1991; Walton 1986) may also have made an impact upon how I perceive and interpret thetheory at present.

I present the 14 points according to Scherkenbach's ordering of them (1982). I will dealwith one point at a time, but because of shortage of space I will not make cross-references.In my view, the theory is, however, a coherent one and the depth of one point may be bettergrasped in the light of another point or the whole theory. I interpret and discuss each pointas I think it may be applied to education.

Point 1: Create constancy of purpose towards improvement of product and services

To understand this point and the following ones, it should be clear that the main intentionof Deming's philosophy was to encourage Western management to go for the long-termperspective instead of making minor amendments to achieve short-term profit. By means ofcreating 'constancy of purpose' he hoped to help man to live a better and fuller life (Neave,1990, pp. 287-292).

How may 'constancy of purpose' be achieved? It can be achieved by developing an

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understanding of the need for constancy of purpose and an understanding of how continuousimprovement may satisfy that need. Deming suggests that this can be attained in educationby creating joy in study and in industry by experiencing joy in work. To achieve such joy,Deming emphasized that an educational institution should establish clear long-term aims,principles, values and norms to guide the educational practices of teachers and students. Thelong-term principle of Deming coincides with the laws and rules that society provides to makeschools fit for their educational tasks. In my educational thinking, it is important that teacherslearn their students' needs and expectations and takes steps to meet them by acting asinsightful leaders and creating stimulating, challenging tasks. This is in accord with thephilosophy of Deming and of past and present progressive educational thinkers and practi-tioners. The tasks should give the students ample opportunities to work individually and ingroups to experience joy in school, to acquire skills and knowledge, to feel satisfaction incooperating with classmates to solve problems of learning, to increase their collaborative skillsand to develop their total personality. Establishing and practising constancy of purpose inschool may mean continuously improving educational processes in such a way that theychallenge the students' needs for learning, socializing and experiencing fun while learning andstudying at school.

Let us look at the following questions to get ideas about other ways in which to adaptthis point of Deming thinking to education.

(1) How can educators establish a direction or road map for the school as an institution?What should such a road map include? Here, I think it may be wise for the leaderof the educational institution to invite staff members to cooperate in working out adocument that illustrates the direction of the organization. Such a document mightinclude a vision of how the school should be in 5-10 years' time, and ideas and plansfor realizing that vision. It might also include a set of core values, ethical consider-ations, norms and attitudes about which the staff of the institution were unanimous,and which they adopt among themselves and in their interaction with the students.The latter practice, where teachers would confront students with the same set ofcore values, should contribute to a constancy of purpose in providing students witha coherent study environment.

(2) How can the school create an educational environment where the teachers treat oneanother and the students with respect so that everyone can experience dignity,meaning and community on the job (Weisbord, 1987)? A set of guidelines mightinclude procedures that the professional educators could use to create challenginglearning and working situations.

(3) How can school work be organized to include the students in the attempt to makeconstancy of purpose to improve continuously all the learning situations andprocesses at school a living reality? Why it is important to include the students in theimprovement process?

(4) What might an educational institution do to create a cooperative, friendly andsupportive environment where all participating experience a sense of being includedand accepted as full members of the social group?

(5) How may educators create a constancy of purpose for continuous improvement inthe field of providing their students with situations in which they would learn tomodify their own behaviour in the light of new knowledge and insights? The needfor such challenges often occurs in educational settings more or less constantlyoccupied with gathering and transferring new knowledge. The real test of theseprocesses obviously lies in how well the organization contributes to make such

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learning possible. Here we are touching on the field of organizational learning, whichmay offer ideas on how to solve such problems and refer to reports on howorganizations have successfully implemented learning from their past experience andfrom the experience of others (Garvin, 1993). Practical ideas on how to achieve suchends may be found in various sources. Here I mention the well-known Russianeducational novel, The Road to Life, written by Makarenko (1974) in the 1930swhich tells how he succeeded in bringing a number of homeless, neglected childrenback to constructive membership of society.

(6) To learn more about the proper use of the Deming cycle of P(lanning) - D(oing) -C Checking) - A(cting), Deming (1986) may prove helpful for teachers who want towork systematically to create continuous improvements in schools, colleges anduniversities.

Point 2: Adopt the new philosophy

Why should we adopt the new philosophy? One answer might be: we should adopt it becauseit builds up a system for continuous improvement in education. This may prove helpful tomany educators. How may systematic improvements contribute to support and heightenstudent learning and maturation towards healthy, joyful and cooperative human beings?

Since the Deming theory provides profound knowledge about the system, educators mayfind it valuable to be more aware of how it impacts on educational processes. Here are somequestions reflecting system factors. How can the educational system be improved to reducefailure in school? How can system factors be changed to avoid creating students who sufferfrom 'learning helplessness'? What system factors should be changed to make physicallyintegrated, handicapped students become socially integrated?

Another effect of Deming's theory may be that schools, colleges and universities breakout of their more or less complete isolation from society. Since all students, after years ofstudying, must be integrated into society, efforts should be made to cooperation regularlywith society during education. Such merging processes may help to make the student moreprepared for active participation in work and the democratic processes of society aftergraduation.

Point 3: Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality; eliminate the need for inspection bybuilding quality into the processes

To cease dependence on using inspectors to achieve quality is a current warning for manyeducators and politicians. I refer here to the fact that some people who begin to use particularmeasures to achieve quality in education, unfortunately copy industry's use of experts toinspect the end product. The use of special inspectors is costly and inefficient, and it does notadd any value to the process or service. How may teachers react to being evaluated byexternal experts? Can 'expert' evaluations make the teacher feel that she is relieved of beingresponsible for the quality of her teaching?

The main point is to deal constructively with building quality into the processes ofeducation without inspecting the end product. How can the educator tackle this problem?Since quality should be evaluated in terms of student satisfaction with the education offered,teachers should be concerned about how well their educational services meet studentproblems, needs and expectations. In addition, teachers must master the content of theirteaching and be competent to plan interaction with students and to motivate them. As part

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of the planning and execution of their teaching, teachers may find the Deming cycle anappropriate tool to ensure that quality is built into the processes.

What is meant by a process? We often use the word 'process' without clarifying what goes intoand comes out of a process. I have found the following definition useful (Scherkenbach,1982, p. 25): it distinguishes between inputs, the processing system, and outputs or out-comes:

Inputs ProcessingSystem

Outcomes

PeopleMaterialEquipmentMethodEnvironment

PeopleMaterialEquipmentMethodEnvironment

This illustrates one single process. It should be remembered, however, that several processesare often linked in education. They may form chain events, where the outcomes of oneprocess simultaneously serve as inputs for the next link in the process chain. This way ofoperationalizing the process shows that the inputs and outcomes contain the same factors,although the person who enters an educational process may not be the 'same' in every respectwhen leaving the process.

Point 4: Improve constantly and for ever the system of production and service, to improve quality andproductivity

Improvement is not new to education. All educators, it is assumed, work to improve theirteaching.

What can educators do to improve constantly and for ever the system of education?Improvement must be built into the whole system of education. What does that mean? If westart with the buildings, it means that thinking about making improvements should be anintegral part of the planning, design and building processes. The way the school buildings aredesigned and built clearly opens up possibilities for some kinds of activity and hampers theexecution of other ways of practising teaching and learning. From my years of serving on thecity of Oslo school board, I remember the time when open schools were in vogue witharchitects, educators and politicians. We built a number of open schools, probably becausewe were fascinated by the educational possibilities this design seemed to offer. Experiencesoon showed, however, that the architects' conception of open schools and the educators'thinking and practice of open education were not compatible. There were soon requests fora 'home' base for each class in the open space. There were also some bizarre difficulties—e.g.when one class, being taught simultaneously in the same open space as another, wanted tosing and had to 'whisper-sing' so as not to disturb the other.

What more can be done to improve the system of education? We can analyze how tomake the quality thinking of Deming an integral part of creating a curriculum plan. Similarly,we can work to integrate quality thinking into the processes of plarming and writingtextbooks. Moreover, we can work with the processes of education to improve them. Thedefinition of process could then be used. Here, we might look for improvement opportunitiesin each of the input variables of the process and work systematically with them.

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Point 5: Remove barriers that rob people of pride of workmanship

Formerly, members of handicraft guilds used pride of workmanship as a guarantee of thequality of their work. This pride rested on their conception of a perfectly done job. Somecraftsmen still adhere to the same practice. Deming contends that people who are robbed ofexperiencing such pride in their own work are left with a job that yields them only pay, whichin the long run does not offer much joy.

What does it mean if we adopt this point of view in education? It means that all thoseworking in education should be entitled to ample opportunities to experience pride inworkmanship. The good feeling of working and successfully completing a job or task servesas fuel, stimulation and inspiration for further contribution. Pride of workmanship is thus apersonal feeling of satisfaction that stems from the successful completion of an educationaltask on the solution of a problem. It is important that teachers learn to accept such positivefeelings and share them with others. By setting an example, they can help their students toexperience this form of satisfaction with work, and thus share positive feelings with theirclassmates.

What can rob people in education of pride of workmanship? System factors, such as performanceappraisals, may be inhibitors to pride of workmanship. Performance rating will, as part of asystem, create a frame of reference which tells the members of this system that performancebelow a certain level is unacceptable. Those to whom that fact applies are accordingly robbedof the opportunity to experience pride of workmanship.

The operation of management by objectives has similar effects because it focusesexclusively upon whether the objective is reached or not. It is not concerned about the peopleinvolved and the intermediate processes (Stenberg, 1980).

Educational institutions should, in my view, remove the barriers that rob the principal,teachers and other staff members of the opportunities to experience pride of workmanship.By this means, they will be better prepared to remove such barriers for the students. They areobviously the same as those for the staff. The students should be invited to participate in theendeavours to remove obstacles to experience pride of workmanship and work constructivelyto create such opportunities.

Point 6: Drive out fear

To what extent does this apply to education? I think it is of crucial importance because theremay be much fear among professional people in education. Teachers may fear beingevaluated by colleagues and students and by external experts who perform regular or irregularappraisals of them and their educational work. They may also fear the unknown and failurein the performance of their jobs. It is a good idea to attempt to drive out fear, since thisnegative emotion may interfere with the execution of teaching, coaching and counselling.What can professional educators do in order to remove the system factors that create fear?What can they do to remove the self-induced factors that create fear? How can they succeedin making educators change the behaviour that some of their colleagues perceive as fear-pro-voking? Improvement groups may be used to: identify fear-provoking factors, either in thesystem or elsewhere; analyze potential ways of removing or reducing such factors; test themout and put the solution into operation.

Fear among students may be equally prevalent, and more so than among teachers. Whenthey first deal with their own fear, teachers may work on this as good preparation for workingwith fear among students. As fear in students is probably aroused by similar causes as those

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dealt with above, attempts to remove or reduce it may be similar. I suggest that studentsshould be active participants in these endeavours. To participate in detecting and driving outfear-provoking factors will enhance their understanding of these types of process and preparethem for handling similar situations as adults.

Although the waste of resources owing to fear does not appear in any statistics, it isestimated to be enormous (Scherkenbach, 1982, p. 76).

Point 7: Break down barriers between departments to enhance the use of teams across internal borders

Most educational institutions of some size are divided into departments, sections, subjectgroups, and the like, to create contact and cooperation between colleagues within the samefield. This type of organizational measure functions to enhance opportunities to providestudents with good teaching and satisfy some of their needs and expectations. Organizationalgroup may develop, however, a kind of self-sufficiency that hampers cooperation betweenmembers of different sections or departments, which should be there to provide tasks andproblems adequate to meet student wants and needs. Barriers created by cliques should alsobe broken down.

How can such measures be taken? Many organizations have successfully found ways tofoster cooperation between departments. I have myself consulted with organizations to solvethis problem, but have not found a 'master' method. 'The trick is the execution of theprocess', says Scherkenbach and adds:

... there is no general remedy. There is no substitute for knowledge. There is nosubstitute for knowing your processes and improving them (Scherkenbach, 1982,p. 82).

What can members of educational institutions do to create companionship and a team spiritthat will permeate the whole organization and stimulate members to cooperate acrosssections? One approach may be to teach them to understand:

(1) that the strength of the educational institution depends on how well all memberscooperate to solve the problems, regardless of what sections they belong to;

(2) that the educational institution should use cross-functional teams for all tasks whichdepend on such cooperation;

(3) that the educational institution should strive to build an organizational cultureblessed with compatriot feelings, team spirit and cooperation.

It is still up to the members of the organization themselves to start putting these ideas intopractice. It may be hard, sustained work.

Point 8: Eliminate slogans, exhortations and targets

Campaigns, slogans, and the like aimed at infiuencing students to change some kind ofbehaviour do not tend to yield lasting results. This may be owing to the fact that theweaknesses which the campaigns aim to improve are attributable to the system and not to thestudents. According to Deming's estimate, more than 90% of all faults, fiaws, etc. depend onthe system. In his terms it is only top leadership that can change the system.

What consequences does this have for educators? One suggestion is that they shouldanalyze the situation to reveal what may, in effect, cause failures, distortions, etc. to occur.Teachers' evaluations of individual students' achievements may not carry much weight since

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the evaluations do not take into consideration how many of the individual's results aredetermined by the system of which the student is a part (Deming, 1986, pp. 65-70).

Slogans such as 'Do it right first time' and 'Be proud of your work' direct studentattention to quality but may have a detrimental effect. Disturbing, negative effects may resultfrom the fact that the student does not know how to solve the problem successfully. Withoutsuch knowledge it is hard to see he/she can be proud of his/her work. Such slogans mayaggravate the situation by offering a stimulating goal, but not providing the means of reachingit.

What can serve as constructive alternatives to campaigns? Systematic work to provideeach student with the necessary training, coaching or counselling might. This can help thestudent to understand the problem, know what methods to choose and how to use them.Learning means acquiring insight and changing behaviour. To be able to demonstratelearning in terms of change of behaviour, the individual must acquire a certain minimumknowledge about the problem in question and insight into what leads to what. A mainmission of the regular processes of education should be to provide students with workingsituations and conditions, appropriate instruction, coaching and counselling which stimulatethem to master the learning tasks in question.

Instead of providing general goals in terms of slogans, education could teach students toset individual goals with a time limit, and train them to evaluate their goals in due time andset new ones. According to experience, an individual feels more responsible for, and is morecommitted to, personal goals than goals set by others. The processes of goal-setting tend tocreate a personal 'ownership' of the goals that the individual formulates himself or herself.Thus, energy is released and the student may work harder to reach the goals.

Point 9: Eliminate work standards and management by objectives, by numbers, numerical goals;substitute leadership

A work standard may be expressed as a concrete measure of a day's work, a number ofproduced items during a fixed period of time or a quota. Deming (1986, pp. 70-75) reportsthat the work standard for a bank teller was stated in terms of the exact number of customershe should handle per hour. Likewise, an airline secretary was requested to make 25 telephonecalls per hour. In Deming's view, a standard is a 'fortress against improvement'. The onlything that counts is to reach the standard, as no claim is made about the quality of the workperformed.

To work with such standards, which are an inherent part of management by objectives,can confuse educators' conceptions of their jobs. Should they be concerned with makingstudents reach goals fixed by others, or should they provide students with challenging work,and meet their needs and wants as human beings, and coach them to acquire betterunderstanding of procedures and what leads to what. Focusing on outcome only and not onprocesses may limit the teachers' opportunities to help students to improve their learningcapacities and communication skills, and develop their social and emotional competencies.

Adapting Deming theory to Norwegian education may be hampered by the Ministry ofEducation which has introduced a departmental decree that 'management by objectives' beused in all educational institutions.

Point 10: Institute leadership

How may we conceive of leadership in education? In my interpretation, Deming considersleadership as being primarily about leading people. In education, as in other spheres of life.

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the leader's main task is to help people to do a better job and be a leader whom every studentcan count on. Leadership consists of acts aimed at influencing people. It is not linked tospecific positions but can be practised by all members of an organization. The teacher shouldconsider her tasks more as those of a leader than of an instructor (Stensaasen, 1989a, p. 45f.).

From what I have said about the teacher and leadership, the latter may prove to becrucial in education. What does that statement mean? It implies that teachers should makeplans and organize stimulating and challenging working situations for students. As part oftheir leadership responsibilities, teachers can include counselling and coaching services, andoffer them according to their perception of students' needs and requests. Teachers shouldalso recognize the leadership acts of the students, be alert to their contributions, and notignore but include them in their practice.

In their function as leaders teachers should treat their students in such a way that theyfeel they care about them; they should make them feel important and help them to becomemore satisfied with themselves and their relationship with education. By their leadershippractice, teachers will also serve as models for their students. The better their leadership actscontain and mediate the message of total quality management (TQM), the better theycontribute to their students' understanding and potential practice of it.

Point 11: Institute training on the job

Instituting training on the job is as much needed in education as in other areas of work.Owing to today's rapidly changing world, education should be prepared to face chaoticsituations. Regular, frequent retraining of educators must be a central part of such prep-aration. The main object of organized training on the job should be to enhance teachers'proficiency in providing learning situations that stimulate the intellectual, social andemotional development of students.

Inhibitors may hamper the realization of measures taken to spread new knowledge andcompetence among colleagues. Because of this, attempts should be made to transformeducational institutions into learning organizations (Garvin, 1993). A challenging task in thisrespect seems to be to make it a custom that the members of the organization learn to modifytheir behaviour in the light of newly acquired experience and knowledge.

Point 12: Institute a vigorous programme of education and self-improvement

What an organization needs is not just good people, it needs people who areimproving with education (Deming, 1986, p. 86).

This statement also applies to people in the field of education. They experience great joys andchallenges in their jobs, but they also feel that they are wearing themselves out by interactingalmost continuously with students to clarify problems, answer questions and provide comfort.These facts stress the needs of educators for services from a vigorous programme of educationand self-improvement.

Such a programme should be considered as an investment in teachers and not registeredas a cost of education. Teachers are the resource people who create the internal process ofthe educational system and fill it with knowledge, intelligence, humour and a socially andemotionally active life for the students and themselves. A programme of education andself-improvement for teachers would undoubtedly contribute to raising the standards ofstudents' as well.

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Point 13: End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price alone

The main object here is that price should be neither the only nor the decisive factor underconsideration in decisions on what educational equipment, books, technical hardware, etc. tobuy. It is necessary to request quality and to recognize its importance for educationalpractice. A way of achieving this may be to establish long-term cooperative contacts withsuppliers and producers to build up their quality consciousness and knowledge of how toachieve and improve the quality of educational products. This procedure may raise thequality of suppliers' deliveries in the educational field as it has done in industry.

Point 14: Put everybody in the organization to work to accomplish the transformation. Thetransformation is everybody's job

The principal of the educational institution has a special responsibility for starting andmaintaining the transformation process. To make the transformation a success, the leaderand his/her leader group must be committed to the task and must be prepared to tackle thevarious setbacks, hardships and resistance that will probably occur during the implemen-tation process. The managing director of Hotel Nikko Osaka, Kanji Ohashi, commented onobstacles to implementation in a conversation I had with him during a study trip to Japan in1992, ten years after they started to implement TQM:

After some time implementing improvement work in the organization, peopleclaimed that it was no use to continuing. They would provide excellent services forthe guests just the same. Then I showed my stubbornness and gave the members ofthe organization this message: I will continue with total quality management until Idie, and I will not finish this practice, even if I die! (Stensaasen & Tofte, 1992,p. 33).

Every member of the organization must participate in the transformation. To ensure that thetransformation process permeates the whole organization, everybody must feel that his/hercontribution is important. Everybody should have a feeling of ownership of the task oftransforming the organization, and recognize that the ways and means they apply during thetransformation are those they should use in the future.

The term 'everybody' includes the students too. They should participate in changing theprocesses from the very start of implementation.

One way to get started may be to arrange search conferences (Stensaasen, 1992) for allthe members of the organization, in order to provide them with ample opportunities toacquire knowledge and understanding of the theory and to discuss how they should im-plement it in their school.

Concluding remarks

To conclude, I will first comment that my treatment of applying Deming's theory toeducation is limited. I realize that it is impossible to discuss every current issue within theavailable space. It is also clear that I have only touched on some of the problems in thediscussions on how each of the 14 points can be interpreted and adopted in education. Thepaper is written with a view to starting a debate on how the philosophy of Deming can befruitfully applied to education.

Second, I want to say that I found no reports on the experience of applying Deming'stheory to education. During the preparation of the paper I did, however, come across a book

APPUCATION OF TQM IN EDUCATION 591

which deals with ideas for adapting the theory to education at university level, but which doesnot present any results from such adaptations (Harris & Baggett, 1993).

To me, the Deming theory is promising in its application to education at all levels. Iconsider the theory to be more than a prescription for good leadership. It may also be lookedon as a philosophy of life. Owing to its holistic nature, I think it can be applied to mostspheres of society. The work of political leaders may, in particular, profit by being based onthe idea that, to achieve quality, it is necessary to build it into design fi-om conception. Byadhering to such a provision and by building on a profound understanding of the message ofDeming, politicians may be better prepared to make improved decisions and plans for thebenefit of people and society.

Lastly, I conclude by contending that the aim is not just to change, but to change toimprove the previous stage.

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