STUDENTS' FEEDBACK ON SERVICE QUALITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Students are key stakeholders in any institution of higher education and their feedback on the services provided by the institutions is likely to provide management with timely information for effective institutional changes and restructuring. The study, therefore, solicited feedback from students reading Business Education on the quality of services offered to them by the University. The feedback was solicited from students on their perception of service quality. Hence, their perception was used as a proxy for their feedback on service quality. The survey design was adopted with a sample of 550 Business Education students. These students were proportionately selected from two programmes (Accounting Education and Management Education). The service quality (SERVQUAL) instrument was used in gathering data and both descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (independent samples t-test) were employed in the data analysis. Generally, students provided negative feedbacks on the services offered to them by the University. Apart from the reliability component of the SERVQUAL instrument where students seem to provide positive feedback, negative feedbacks were provided for other components of service quality such as tangibility, responsiveness, empathy and assurance. A further analysis of their feedbacks, in terms of gender, indicated that both male and female students equally concur that that the services provided to them by the University are poor. The management of the University should, therefore, improve the services offered to students in the area of tangibility, responsiveness, empathy and assurance components of their service quality.