BENCHMARKING QUALITY ASSURANCE IMPLEMENTATION TO FOSTER REGIONAL COLLABORATION IN HIGHER EDUCATION

The subject of quality is central to organisations such as Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs). This conceptual paper questions and explores how HEIs can produce quality graduates through benchmarking practises of their competitors through regional collaboration in Southern Africa. Often quality defines which organisations win or lose. For HEIs quality means their graduates, research or consultancy meets the needs of clients in that they can solve clients’ problems. Their graduates must not only be able to perform at the required standard at their workplaces but they must be leaders. Why are graduates of one institution regarded as more desirable than those of others? Why is that so? Employers desire employees who can add value to their organisations. In this quest, the quality of employees’ prior education and training is key. According to Vroom and Luchsinger (2004), quality can be explained as the capability of a product or service not only to meet customer needs but surpass them. Quality is ‘a measure of the extent to which a thing or experience meet a need, solves a problem, or adds value to someone’ (Vroom & Luschinger, 2004, p.151). The aim of quality products and services is to delight customers so that they are ready to come again and again for more. Delight comes through exceeding client’s expectations. The methodology in this article is underpinned by document analysis on how quality can be achieved in HEIs. The results of the study showed that quality in higher education can be enhanced if institutions can identify problem areas in their operations be it in administration, teaching and research or community engagement. Once a problem has been identified a benchmarking team can understudy how world-class operations on that problem is done in other HEIs. With collaboration from these HEIs, the team implements what they have learnt from others. Once that problem is solved, another is identified and that process is ongoing and ceaseless as encompassed by the Japanese philosophy of ‘kaizen’ which relates ceaseless incremental improvement.