A survey of quality management in collaboration strategy between public universities and tertiary colleges in Kenya

Abstract

Department of Business Administration, 54p. The LB 2341.8 .K4M33 2012

In a bid to deal with the low enrolment to Kenya Public Universities, the Government of Kenya
 Sought to provide university education by having double intakes in an academic year as well as
 Taking over middle level colleges and polytechnics and converting them into universities issuing
 degrees. These steps however weren't sufficient to increase enrolment of deserving students to
 Universities. This has led to some public universities collaborating with private tertiary colleges
 to further reach the students and offer degrees. Focusing on collaborations contribution to access
 of higher education and quality, this survey was carried out on the quality management of the
 collaboration strategy between public universities and tertiary colleges in Kenya. The objective
 of the study was to examine the effect of quality management practices in collaborations, to
 identify the facilities leading to collaborations and identification of the policy guidelines in
 quality management in collaborations.
 The study employed a descriptive design. The target population was public Universities and
 Private colleges that have collaborated. Stratified sampling was used in the study to get a sample.
 This resulted in getting a target of 64 elements. Of these, 54 responded and returned the
 questionnaires constituting 84.3% response rate. This was a representative rate for sufficient
 inference on the general population. The managers consisted of 25% of the target population,
 the staff and lecturers 50% while the students consisted of 25% of the population. A structured
 questionnaire with both open and closed questions was used as the main tool of data collection.
 The data was analyzed using descriptive statistical methods and measures of central tendency.
 From the findings, it became apparent that the principles and practices of quality. that is people
 and relationships, continuous improvement (kaizen) and measures to quality maintenance are
 practiced and there has not been evidence of adverse negative effects of the collaborations on
 quality. Kaizen was found to exist below average. Quality- measures are however observed.
 Following guidelines from the Commission of Higher Education on the ratio of lecturers to
 students, the findings were that all ratios in the institutions were above the recommended ratio of
 the commission. From observation however, the ratio is much higher than what was indicated by
 the respondents.
 It is recommended that policy makers provide policies on revenue sharing ratios, joint
 management, take into account the global environment and incorporate Kenyan education system
 measure up to global standards. Further, universities and other institutions of learning ought to be
 registered by the Commission of Higher Education, which can rank the universities. On ratios,
 there could be increase lecturers to balance the deficit, enforce class sizes in both public and
 private institutions. Further, the use of both distance learning and E-learning can be used to
 decrease the number of students to lecturers, but more lecturers would still be important to have
 quality interaction of the distance learners and E-Iearners as well. Training on the management
 of public and private collaborations can be implemented as well.

Kenyatta University