Total Quality Management Culture and Productivity Improvement in Ethiopia Higher Institutions

The desire of all parents is to have qualitative and functional educational programs for their children from nursery school to the university level. This is in conformity with the general belief that a sound education is the only permanent legacy that parents can pass on to their children to ensure their future. However, what we see nowadays is that many countries’ education system is turning out unemployable illiterates. Hallak (1990) emphasized that the quality of the education system depends on the quality of its teachers. Alloy Ejiogu (1990) stated that the quality of education in any given society depend considerably on the number and the quality of its personnel. David (1995) affirmed that the need for administrative training program in education is crucial to the success and quality of the new educational system which currently lacks visible subsystem of administrative training program. It therefore becomes highly necessary that school administrators address themselves to those managerial activities that would lead to improvement of performance, thereby leading to academic excellence in schools. In fact, recent surveys have it that members of the public hold the opinion and accuse school administrators of being more interested in their personal welfare of entertaining visitors than in the programs meant for improvement of academic standards of their schools. Teachers are equally being accused of lack of commitment and dedication to duty. Parents are not encouraged enough to participate in the school management and in the same vein, the local schools boards have not been fully responsible for daily administration, management and quality control of schools with respect to certification and materials development techniques of teaching and evaluation. Abugbe (2002) affirmed that, a functional educational system is the cry of educationists the world over. This is because, we are inclined to believe that educational advancement and innovations can only come forth from disciplined and committed minds, which operate within an enabling work organizational culture, a culture pervaded by quality consciousness. Therefore, there is an urgent need for an organization wide approach and commitment to quality improvement since no one organization can boast of holding franchise to the development and delivery of quality products/services; many organizations have embraced the total quality management concept as a way of survival