Sustaining Quality In Higher Education: An Imperative For Nation-Building

Quality is the measure of excellence and the state of being free from defects, deficiencies or significant variations. ISO 8402-1986 standard defines quality as "the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bears its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs." Quality Improvement and Sustenance have become the key areas of emphasis of the modern time. Higher Education suffers from the paradoxes of ill efficiency, mismanagement and lower productivity on account of lack of adherence to quality standards. This affects the students, teachers, parents, management, industries, society and the nation at large. In order to build a competitive nation in this era of globalization, a sincere effort in the direction of sustaining quality is called for. This paper attempts to elucidate the necessity of sustaining Quality in Higher Education from the perspective of institutions providing higher education and their management and gives recommendations on how it can be achieved to build a progressive nation.

1.    Introduction: Quality implies difference in value, in comparison to the common. Something having quality is perceived to be less accessible than an alternative of the same entity that lacks quality. Thus, quality means having numerous versions of the same thing organized in a hierarchical pattern indicating the presence of relative values. In the history of education, the need to ensure quality has cropped up quite recently. Educational institutions need to build up a quality outlook, implementing corporate practices such as strategic planning, delegation of responsibility and fixing accountability norms. The concept of standards and quality used in industry should be applied in the field of education too. Higher Education aims to conserve, spread and upgrade knowledge. Experts, committees and commissions emphasize the importance of education as the key to progress. In a globally competitive environment it is essential that Indian products passing out of higher education institutions become competent enough not only in their academic accomplishments but also in their value system, traits and behavior when compared to graduates of any other country. Education is now regarded no less than an industry hence norms followed in industries are applicable here as well. Thus, in order to sustain in the fiercely competitive world, enhancement of Quality and the standard of Indian higher education institutions becomes indispensable.
The long-term objective of the National Policy on Education (NPE) formulated in 1968 was Quality Enhancement and Increase in the number of students coming out of the colleges and schools. This is crucial for the task of nation building. To accentuate this need of Quality Standards in Higher Education, the Government of India in August 1985 with the Ministry of Education's document, " Challenge of Education — a Policy Perspective" launched a campaign for quality in education. The NPE was framed to effectively meet the challenges occurring due to ongoing revolution in science and technology.

Associate Professor, Sapient Institute of Management Studies, Indore
Quality is defined quite vaguely. This attribute of values cannot easily be quantified. Quality when discussed with respect to education, the students focus on the facilities offered, teachers on the teaching, learning and growth prospects, management and parents on the scores or grades achieved by the students.

In an environment driven by cut throat competition, students are attracted towards the best courses only. Only the ‘Quality’ courses emerge fittest to survive. This underlines the main reason due to which the governmental agencies insist universities to show signs of their dedication to quality before funding new courses. Traditional education has lost its vigor due to the diminishing quality focus. To make the new courses fruitful for society, educational institutions should develop a quality outlook by adopting corporate practices such as strategic planning, delegation of responsibility and fixing accountability norms. The current socio-economic background indicates a pressing need of quality in education which will be appreciated by one and all. It would appeal to students planning to acquire professional skills to establish them in terms of employment.
However, quality perspective in education is not just student-focused but also society-oriented since the society sustains the education system, nourishes it and also accepts its effects whether positive or negative. Thus, all education institutions owe their prosperity to the society and the nation at large and hence are accountable to them as well.

2.    Total quality management in Higher Education: Total Quality management is a comprehensive, organization-wide effort to improve the quality of products and services, applicable to all organizations. It is more of an approach than a program. It originated in 1950 but gained steady popularity in the early 1980s.TQM illustrates a blend of culture, attitude and organization of any company. Culture covers all the aspects of an organization from the manner in which operations and processes are conducted to rectification and elimination of errors and defects. All organizations have their objectives and TQM underlines exactly on the standards that are established on fulfilling them along with the customer needs and their satisfaction levels. In other words, from TQM’s perspective, an organization is a collection of processes. With the course of time, knowledge and experience is amassed by both, the company as well as its employees. TQM ensures ongoing advancement with its philosophy, “Do the right things, right at the first time, every time”. TQM is now being accredited as a broad management mechanism which is relevant to a horde of service and public sector organizations, given the personalized evolution of it. It has certainly launched innovative ways against the traditional methods of executing a business.
A common analysis of the three words of the title TQM means:
 

The Principles of TQM
The following principles are the guiding ideologies of TQM
•    Meet the customer’s requirement on time, the first time, and 100% of the time.
In Academia, the customers are the students or the receivers of knowledge.
•    Strive to do error free work.
•    Manage by prevention not by correction.
•    Measure the cost of quality.
•    Committing to a quality focused system.
•    Identifying customer satisfaction as the key indicator for quality services.
•    Showing reception for novel strategies for upbringing a gradual and enduring advancement of the company’s products and services.
With proper identification of inaccuracies in the academic and administrative system, immediate refinement plans need to be put into practice, such dedication is necessary in a managerially demanding situation. Building receptiveness to change, encouraging participation of stakeholders and empowered personnel is the motivating force. TQM’s success is directly proportional to the role of the senior and top managers or leaders in manifesting the change in the organization and hence, it is more likely to succeed in those organizations where the leaders are supportive rather than crafty.

3.    Key Concepts of TQM: The six key concepts that are inevitable for implementing TQM are stated below. They may be further developed to suit an organization’s specific aptness.

 
Thus, applying these concept in Higher Education,
1.    Satisfaction of knowledge receivers at all cost. For this, identification of satisfaction levels and necessary parameters for the attainment of satisfaction and delight of stakeholders becomes an imperative.
2.    An ongoing improvement process in academics i.e. teaching, exams, curriculum development and administration is inevitable to achieve quality goals.
3.    Strong control on the operations of the acdemicia with checks and balances at all levels becomes an indispensible requirement to sustain quality and reduce errors.
4.    Establishment of an error-free system by firstly avoiding errors at the first place itself and by applying mid-course correction to check the deviations to eliminate errors that can occur in future.
5.    A continuous preventive action process in the administration and academic system with a department dedicated to quality management should be incorporated. They should guide their subordinates (faculty/staff) to work according to tailor-made guidelines of qualtiy standards.
6.    Senior academicians and experts should be invited to participate in quality improvement programs for sharing their inputs for quality enhancement in higher education.  A spirit of comraderie should be developed among the team members with proper hierarchy of responsibilities and authorities so as to maintain high standards of quality and continuous preventive action.



4.    Dimensions of Quality in Education
•    Time and timeliness: Time taken for completion of the academic/administrative curriculum.
•    Completeness: It deals with providing the complete package as desired by the stakeholders i.e. the students, the society, the government, the academic and administrative staff and the management.    
•    Courtesy: It deals with the way the stake owners are treated in the system.
•    Consistency: It involves providing the same service to all the students/parents/government and society every time.
•    Accessibility and convenience: It involves the ease of obtaining education.
•    Accuracy: it involves with the correctness of services provided every time the service is delivered. This may be linked to reduction in errors in result compilation and execution of academic and administrative duties
•    Responsiveness: It is the ability of the system to respond to unusual situations, deviations and contingencies.
Thus, Total Quality Management (TQM) in education is student-oriented involving strategic planning, employee responsibility in terms of academics and administration taken together with continuous improvement in the system with the cooperation of the management and the society at large using training and development of the teachers and other staff and measuring the effectiveness of such programs using statistical methods.

The TQM approach in educational institutions makes it mandatory that the institute should have a vision of what it wants to accomplish. It should clearly define its mission which is in congruence with its vision. Long term objectives should be laid down accordingly and should be narrowed down to into specific, attainable, meaningful short term objectives and goals. This activity requires commitment on the part of employees and investment of time and resources on part of the management and owners hence poses to be a distant dream for the institutions in the realm of higher education. Ambiguous vision statements and flimsy mission statements of the many higher education institutions are the cause of incapability of implementation of TQM in Education. Lack of courage and dedication on the part of the academia in the implementation of Total Quality Management makes things worse.

5.    Quality can be achieved by autonomy: According to the academic fraternity, the absence of autonomy in the academic as well as administrative matters can be accorded as the main reason for the anomalies in the education system.  The quality of higher education and research can be ascertained only when educational institutions are made autonomous. Higher Education Institutions have a moral binding towards students, parents, colleagues and themselves. Legal accountability is basically confined to be responsible to the employer in the fulfillment of terms and conditions of employment contract. It is observed that teachers discharge mostly legal accountability, which is in the form of teaching in classrooms and laboratories at the under-graduate level and research and consultancy also at the university level. They are mostly of the view to complete the prescribed syllabus according to the predetermined curriculum within a specified period which may be a trimester, semester or a year. Affiliation of Institutions to universities make them dependant on the curriculum followed by it thus erasing their autonomy. A lax university system negatively affects the system of the institution thus hampering the quality of education provided and also the quality of the administration system. It also restricts the quality standards to just syllabus completion, exams and results which circumvents the all round development of the student and implementation of Total Quality Management seems difficult.

6.    Quality: A Moral/Ethical Responsibility: Ethics evolves from the mind of an individual and is basically personal. Ethical behavior of organizations is fashioned as the aggregate of individual employee characteristics. Ethics is stranded in values and is neither learned nor taught. Values are formed from childhood and situations confronted during the lifetime. The extent of ethics includes observance of truth, pledge to justice, integrity of character, consistency in thought, word and deed. The present day higher education system is abounding with unethical practices of management and teachers. Proliferation of educational institutions, especially professional colleges with commercial motives of wealth and popularity has made no contribution to the social causes of education, knowledge dissemination and shaping the future of our young and enlightened nation. This is in contradiction to the ancient practice of education grounded in altruistic values. Modern educational institutions lack the development of infrastructure that facilitates the process of learning. Classrooms filled beyond capacity are a common sight in a number of professional colleges. Occurrences of colleges admitting students in excess of the acceptable intake, blatant breach of norms are plentiful. This results in an inadequate teacher-student ratio, which negatively influences the quality of teaching. Conducive environment for learning is also affected.

Education was regarded as the noblest of all professions. This notion has been eroded with the passage of time. The reason can be attributed to the degradation in the quality of education in terms of teaching, administration and research. The teacher has the moral obligation to guide and facilitate students, to empower them with sound technical skills and inculcate in them values and morals so that they contribute positively in building a progressive nation. Confinement to only curriculum poses a barrier in maintaining the ethical/moral standards in education. The teacher as a role model -inspirer, motivator, counselor and mentor, has not yet become an important part of the responsibility of the teacher. The moral and ethical value base of teachers has to be strengthened further so that they can inculcate the same in the receivers of knowledge and thereby sharpen their intellect and make worthwhile contributions for building a strong nation.
Privatization of Higher Education Institutions which are affiliated to private/deemed universities has given way to the establishment of institutions providing PGP, MBA, PGDM and other certificate programs of same level. On one hand, this has opened up avenues for receivers of knowledge, provided better facilities in terms of infrastructure and but on the other hand such mushrooming of PGP colleges has hampered the quality of education provided. The students who invest their time and money in such programs are unable to obtain maximum worth out of it. Thus, ethical and moral perspective of quality becomes significant in the perspective of privatization of education since players have more autonomy in curriculum design, faculty recruitment, enrolment procedures and evaluation techniques.
Quality certifications acquired by many private institutions seem deceptive when compared to the services (education and other) provided by them. These institutions use such certifications as a tool to create hype in the market in order to change the perception of their potential customers. These certifications are obtained for a particular time period and students are deceived on account of quality standards achieved by the institute. These certificates lack evaluation and updation and hence are just a measure used for window dressing by the institutions. Such unethical practices act as a barrier to the effectiveness of quality certifications and their relevance in higher education.
Another striking feature is the fee charged by private institutions which is not according to the approved or affiliated authorities like AICTE etc. For instance, extra charges are generated under the heads of management forum for placement assistance, industrial visits, seminars, workshops, educational tours etc. The students don’t even obtain the worth of their money in return on account of sub-standard services provided by the institutions. The students and their parents are then trapped in the vicious circle of dissatisfaction and dilemma.

Faculty recruitment is another area of concern in sustaining quality of higher education. Unbridled nepotism endangers the quality of education provided by institutions. Personal interests of the promoters become primary motives and student's interests are subordinated. The quality of faculty recruitment is thus responsible for the declining academic standards. Many academicians do not devote their intellectual resources for the benefit of the students. Instead, they invest their time and energies to their own commercial purposes other than their profession to earn more wealth and social recognition. Exploitation of human resource, uneven distribution of workload, compensation-less over time, inadequate remuneration, lack of other benefits like leaves/recreation etc are some of the many vagaries faced by faculty of private institutions These unfortunate developments are the causes of the loopholes in the higher education system which needs to be checked with utmost urgency. If the current trend continues, it will crush the rationale behind higher education, which is to transform the youth into ingenious, erudite, inventive, and vivacious nation builders. Therefore, there is an urgent need for instilling ethics and moral values in all individuals involved in the functioning of higher education system. A complete renovation of the education system is a must to prevent its degeneration. The government, the educationists and the stakeholders, parents and students should bring about an ethical revolution by contributing their part. Only then can India strengthen its values in educating, make it qualitatively compatible with that of the developed countries, while keeping intact its traditional value base.
All the private institutions should abide by the rules of University Grant Commission (UGC) for work-load and pay-scales of faculties and other staff members. This would not only motivate them to provide dedicated services to the institution but also would reduce their emotional dissonance for the institutions and their professions as well. This shall go a long way in building an ethically strong academia.

7.    Government interventions for Quality Assurance: Since Independence, rigorous efforts have been made to accentuate quality in higher education. The reports of the Education Commission (1964-66) and the National Policy on Education (1986) have delineated procedures for quality assurance in higher education. The UGC Act of 1956 envisions taking all steps for the determination and maintenance of standards in teaching, examination and research in the universities. To meet these objectives, the UGC formulated guidelines and regulations with respect to infrastructure facilities, essential qualifications of teaching faculty and their workload, course duration and teaching days in a year, academic schedule, evaluation and assessment of performance of teachers. The UGC has initiated programmes to ensure qualitative improvement in teaching at the undergraduate level like College Science Improvement Programme (COSIP) and College Humanities and Social Sciences Improvement Programme (COHSSIP). The schemes of autonomous colleges' Curriculum Development Centres (CDC) also enhance quality of teaching. The UGC introduced Departmental Research Schemes (DRS), Special Assistance Programme (SAP), Centre for Advanced Studies (CAS) and Committee for Strengthening of Infrastructure in Science and Technology (COSIST) schemes etc to promote excellence in research.
Undoubtedly, it is creditable that the UGC has introduced a number of schemes and programmes to ensure quality in higher education but the results are not desired. The UGC, State Governments and the universities must eliminate the ambiguities of the existing administrative system and control the in admissions of students and improve the physical infrastructure including upgradation of libraries and laboratories. Knowledge and skill up gradation of faculty should be regulated. A scientific method of identify the training needs of faculty is the need of the hour. This is how the investments made for faculty development would generate desired returns.

The Government boasts about Education for All but at the same time considers the past record (Graduation/12th marks) even after the student qualifies the entrance exams of PG courses in the name of quality. This contradicts its intentions and plans. If entrance exams are organized to test the candidature of each student, then the results of such exams should be the ultimate deciding factor and past records should then hold no relevance. Such policies only increase expenses on the part of the government without enhancing quality.  Quality in higher education can be achieved when its advocates realize its worth and identify and play their parts in fabricating a knowledge based nation. An ethical perspective on the part of educational institutions would provide an impetus to Government initiatives to harness effective outcomes for the betterment of the nation as a whole.

On the research front, evaluation of doctoral thesis should be made infallible. Unlike some universities, it is observed that the quality of research in many universities is subject to sharp denigration. Aptitude Tests of the aspiring candidates is crucial to sustain quality at all levels of teaching since results and recommendations of such researches are implemented in the practical business world and repercussions of a wrong recommendation can be serious. Thus, expertise in the area of specialization and the skill of the researcher has to be thoroughly scrutinized. In spite of modification of curricula by the UGC, there is a mismatch between the proportion of knowledge and skill acquired by the student and the actual requirements and expectations of the various sectors. Exchange of faculty between the institutions and the industry, well structured, practical and module based faculty development programmes can be some of the many solutions to the issue of quality sustenance in higher education.

Government institutions lack in timely interventions for instance of the AICTE which approved colleges for different technical and professional courses like B.E. meet was scheduled so late that they were unable to provide timely information to the students, parents and to institutions as well. This results in delay in commencement of sessions leading to delayed exams creating chaos and confusion for the students, parents and institutions. This also affects the campus recruitment and employment opportunities for students. And thus companies are deprived of intellectual fresh pass-outs that can go a long way in contributing for a better business world. The contraction of sessions hampers quality of education since teachers are pressurized to complete syllabus and students are forced to take refuge of keys and guides or substandard materials for passing exams in place of quality study material and text or reference books.
An appropriate assessment and accreditation mechanism is essential to ensure the quality and standard of the academic/training programmes at higher educational institutions of the country which has to be continuous and the process has to be transparent to gain the acceptance of the country.

8.    Recommendations
1.    Quantitative expansion of education (i.e. accessibility dimension) should be considered with utmost priority since it is important to mitigate disparities across regions, gender and social strata in the field of education.
2.    Accessibility and quality up gradation are inseparable dimensions of higher education. Over-emphasis on one at the cost of the other would be counterproductive.
3.    Emphasis on quality parameters becomes necessary in the light of mushrooming of private institutions with the opening up of the Indian economy.
4.    Learner’s involvement must be encouraged to link experience with learning.
5.    A mentor-mentee relationship should be nurtured instead of teachers directing or instructing students all the time.
6.    Learners must have ample scope for self search and experiential learning.
7.    Multidisciplinary curriculum must be developed with a view to cater to the needs and fulfillment of expectations of learners, teachers, parents, employers and society in general.
8.    Decentralization must be encouraged with a broad frame work of University system.
9.    Every University must have its own curriculum which reflects Context, specificity and inquiry oriented experience.
10.    Problem solving abilities must be developed in the learner through experimentation and life-like situations.
11.    The curriculum should encourage group activities and make optimum use of peer as resources of higher learning.
12.    The curriculum must reflect the principles of self regulation, self mediation and self awareness on the part of learners.
13.    Learners should be assessed on continuous basis to create the basis for acquiring new experiences.
14.    The establishment of a Quality Cell is necessary. It should comprise the Chief Executive, senior academics and officers of the institution who should work as a steering group. The Cell should be categorized into two quality groups, one for academic excellence and another for administrative efficiency. These groups may design strategies for quality up-gradation and quality control.
15.    The Quality Cell must undertake periodic assessment exercises to ensure quality standards.
16.    While restructuring the syllabus and courses, combination theoretical and practical skills must be developed. The courses should be designed such that reading and interpretation, practical field work and application of readings and other skills are given importance.
17.    Use of audio-visual technologies and Internet can enhance Quality of Higher Education considerably.
18.    Reforms in Examination pattern is necessary gradually shifting it from the terminal, annual and semester examinations to regular and continuous assessment of student’s performance in learning.  The Exams should test the memory, writing skills, presentation as well as the analytical skills of a student rather than just focusing on memory and writing skills.
19.    Quality of higher education can also be improved by introducing quality oriented objectivity in merit promotions of teaching faculty. Specification of weightages for teaching, research publications/ supervision should be included to make this transparent.  
20.    A critical review of activities of higher educational institutions as well as their budgets needs to be conducted to phase out obsolete activities and create the necessary space for new activities. The shifting from traditional incremental budgeting to performance based one is now necessary to arrest the erosion in quality inspite of the resource crunch.
21.    Security, safety and welfare of staff should be given attention at priority.
22.    Augmentation of Library and learning resources is necessary to enhance skills of faculty as well as the students.
23.    Efforts should be made for long term retention of faculty.
24.    Research and collaborative activity may be further developed and sustained.
25.    A 360 degree feedback should be obtained from all the stakeholders.
26.    Infrastructural facilities like hostels, sitting areas, lobbies etc should be made more students friendly so as to encourage and motivate students to learn and increase their hours of sitting for fruitful studies.
27.    Admission process should be more inclusive by providing ample representation to the socially disadvantaged and differently-abled.
28.    Democratically elected students council is desirable at higher education level. This adds to their worthy participation in decision making.
29.    Training, upgradation of skills and progression of all employees needs to be implemented in an organized manner.
30.    Broader and deeper participation of faculty in controlling the decisions regarding day to day operations is highly desirable. For this, the distinction between Academic and Non-Academic work should be strictly followed as against its fragile condition at present since it seriously affects the creativity and productivity of academicians if they are asked to involve themselves in non academic activities. The more restrictions posed on creativity of faculties, the more deterioration in quality can be expected.
31.    The academic workforce can be further categorized into two wings keeping without affecting their compensation. The first one under the Research head should devote more time towards research and find innovative techniques and improvements on existing methods of teaching methodology and technology and the other wing should include academicians who devote greater part of their time on teaching and implementing the results of the research wing giving their valuable feedback along the process.
32.    Educational Institutes should use other similar institutes of National and International level which follow best practices of the trade as benchmarks to improve their quality standards.
    
9.    Conclusion: The term Nation Building or “Build India”, in our case is generally considered to be related to infrastructural development of the country. Investments made in infrastructure-related companies, be it infrastructure financing, companies involved in construction of roads, bridges, airports, power plants, telecom, ship yards would be taken as the key to accomplish this mammoth task. The current ‘Building India’ is far removed from the abstract notions of nation-building as is comprehended by us. ‘Nation-Building’ is more of an Educating exercise rather than just the beautification of the country.  The inescapable contradiction between a booming economy and a rotting society appears too jarring to be missed. We have to take cognizance of the nuances of the soft infrastructure that a nation needs to thrive. It is not enough to put money into people’s pockets, educating them about its proper use is as important so as to ensure constructive contribution in the continuous development of the country. Thus, infrastructure without Quality education is not adequate enough to sustain a nation. There are three players who have traditionally taught values to one’s fellowmen. First is the family, the earliest educator, but often the influence of the family is waning. Second is religion; but in a bizarre twist of tale, the religious establishment is the place, which is viewed with the most suspicion today. And third is the State, which concerns itself with primary education, secondary education and higher education; but most of all, it is concerned with the conduct of examinations. Because all these three are limping, they ought to come together. In the midst of all this, value education has taken a beating and has been orphaned. If this continues for long, the nation will eventually get shallower on the inside leading to a colossal tragedy.

The tendency to link quality with visible indicators and accountability can only exacerbate the problem that the discourse of quality is attempting to address. If our goal is to make systems of education more efficient, we cannot do better than by recalling Dewey’s idea of efficiency as a measure of communication. This conception invokes the need to look in two directions for our search of ‘quality’ parameters capable of being used for the comparative study of education and for theory building. In one direction, we should be looking for ways to build teacher confidence by ensuring communication between them and policy makers, curriculum designers and non-government organizations. In the other direction, we should look for greater historic awareness at all levels regarding the role of education in promoting a culture based on reason and peace, which might replace the culture of competitive aggressiveness which has been gaining legitimacy.

The Constitution of India makes it clear what kind of a nation we are, highlighting our shared past and shared destiny. Our national commitment is to the values that denote the ‘Basic Structure’ of our Constitution, as visualized in its Preamble. The success or otherwise, the suitability, viability and justification of any organization, government, policies and programmes is judged by its readiness to achieve and success in achieving the goals of the Preamble. That is the best guarantee for the nation-building.  

10.    References:
1.    History of the quality debate: The Quality Imperative by Krishna Kumar Padma M. Sarangapani 2004,  “Paper commissioned for the EFA Global Monitoring Report 2005
2.    Balagopalan, S. and Subrahmanian, R. 2003. ‘Dalit and Adivasi Children in Schools: Some Preliminary Research Themes’, IDS Bulletin (34:1; pp43-54).
3.    Review Essay: Basil Bernstein (1996). Pedagogy, symbolic control and identity London: Taylor and Francis by Parlo Singh.
4.    Quality Approaches And Interventions In Greek Secondary Education by H. Prokopiou, A. Koutsomichalis and N.M. Vaxevanidis published in International Journal for Quality research UDK - 373.5(495) Professional Paper (1.04) Vol.1, No. 4, 2007 347.
5.    The Quality of Primary Education in Developing Countries: who defines and who decides? By David Stephens published in Comparative Education, Volume 27, Issue 2 1991 , pages 223 – 233
6.    Education for an unsettled world: Dewey’s conception of open-mindedness by William Hare Mount St. Vincent University.
7.    Dube, S. C. 1988. ‘Cultural Dimension of Development’, International Social Science Journal (118; pp505-11)
8.    Dewey, J. (1916) Democracy and Education: The middle works of John Dewey, Volume 9 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1996)
9.    Fuller, B. (1994) “Quality of Education in Developing Nations: Policies for Improving” in T. Husen and N. Postlewaithe (Editors-in-chief) The International Encyclopadeia of Education (Oxford: Pergammon) pp.4865-4873.