AbstractsEducation Research & Administration

The main hypothesis underlying this study has been formulated on the basis of an identified need in the Republic of South Africa (RSA) for a means of ensuring and preserving acceptable standards (by international norms) and quality in higher education. It has been assumed that this need may partially be met by the adaptation of selected overseas systems of quality control and systems of evaluation and accreditation of standards. The emphasis throughout is on intelligent, selective adaptation of successful attempts at controlling and managing standards and quality in higher education. One of the primary reasons for the establishment of a model for the preservation and enhancement of standards in higher education in the RSA, becomes clear when one identifies the emergence of a growing number of aspirant students. Many of those students attended schools where neither the tuition nor the facilities provided a suitable foundation for further studies at an advanced level. A further need for such a model is related to great pressures to lower standards which are being exerted by political and social groups and the prevailing views amongst many educators that a decrease in standards is inevitable. The hypotheses that will be tested include the assumption that a lowering of standards will seriously affect industry, commerce, and the whole social fabric and ultimately the credibility of South Africa's higher educational institutions and the acceptability of their graduates. This study is therefore aimed primarily at focusing attention on the need for an awareness amongst the higher educational community, and other communities, of the implications of vastly increased enrolments of under-prepared students. The analysis of, for example, higher education quality control measures in the United Kingdom (UK) and the united States (USA) serves to provide an international norm and also provides examples of well-tried and established methods of ensuring standards. The central purpose of this study is to seek sOlutions by examining and defining "standards" and "quality" in higher education and by reviewing and evaluating measures taken in order to maintain such standards. Solutions which prove worthwhile can then be incorporated into a model for the RSA. The universality of certain educational principles, which are applicable to a study of standards and quality, emerges strongly from this stUdy. What also emerges are the undeniable virtues of careful, logical studies of other educational systems in order that one may be in a better position to assess and improve one's own system. The pervasive and significant influence of the business community's system of Total Quality Management (TQM) and its applicability to higher education manifests itself strongly throughout this study. The principles of TQM and their implementation in the commercial and industrial sectors, present a challenge to those who believe that such principles can be adapted and utilised by the higher education fraternity. The use of such TQM principles in a model for the…