The ranking of higher education institutions : a deduction or delusion?
By: TAMBI, Abdul Malek Bin A
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Contributor(s): GHAZALI, Maznah Che | YAHYA, Norasikin Binti.
Material type: 
ArticlePublisher: Oxfordshire, UK : Taylor & Francis, September-October 2008Total quality management & business excellence 19, 9-10, p. 997-1011Abstract: The necessity to take into account the stakeholders' interests in higher education has resulted in the emergence of many performance measurement approaches that make use of performance indicators. The aim of this paper is to determine the benefits of using performance indicators for higher education and the problems associated with them. From a thorough examination of established models, it is concluded that the use of performance indicators for ranking purposes is unfounded. Performance indicators are known to bear many weaknesses such as, it is difficult to relate output to input; they only indirectly measure the achievement of objectives; and there is an ambiguity in their meanings. Their use should be restricted to highlight the areas of concerns in the higher education system. The ISO 9000 quality system was reported to have made very little progress in higher education. On a similar note, TQM, which has been widely practised in higher education institutions in the USA since the late 1980s, has not made much progress in other parts of the world. Tambi (2000) has proposed the application of Kanji's Business Excellence Model (KBEM) (Kanji, 1998a, 1998b) which can be used as a tool for quality review and enhancement of higher education institutions
The necessity to take into account the stakeholders' interests in higher education has resulted in the emergence of many performance measurement approaches that make use of performance indicators. The aim of this paper is to determine the benefits of using performance indicators for higher education and the problems associated with them. From a thorough examination of established models, it is concluded that the use of performance indicators for ranking purposes is unfounded. Performance indicators are known to bear many weaknesses such as, it is difficult to relate output to input; they only indirectly measure the achievement of objectives; and there is an ambiguity in their meanings. Their use should be restricted to highlight the areas of concerns in the higher education system. The ISO 9000 quality system was reported to have made very little progress in higher education. On a similar note, TQM, which has been widely practised in higher education institutions in the USA since the late 1980s, has not made much progress in other parts of the world. Tambi (2000) has proposed the application of Kanji's Business Excellence Model (KBEM) (Kanji, 1998a, 1998b) which can be used as a tool for quality review and enhancement of higher education institutions
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