LEVEL OF AWARENESS AND UNDERSTANDING OF THE MEANING OF TQM IN GIRLS PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN SAUDI ARABIA

Education professionals must guarantee that the service they provide is of the best quality. Total Quality Management (TQM), which has achieved tremendous improvements in manufacturing and business, has recently been implemented in the education sector. Rapid economic development spurs universities and schools to put into practice modern management styles to strive for continuous improvement and achieve superior outcomes. Not only are quantity targeted in education but also quality. Total quality management has the potential to reduce costs dramatically and bring about better outcomes. TQM principles have been the basis of many new policies promoted by education ministries and government officials in the Middle East to improve efficiency and effectiveness of schools and universities. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is making extensive efforts to raise the quality of education in the country in this way. Several policies have been put in place to improve different areas of education. Despite the intention of raising the quality of education, some of these measures show an imperfect grasp of the concept of quality in education and TQM. This has an adverse effect on the potential service improvements these institutions could offer. Taking into account the substantial investment in the education system, this appears to be an important matter to investigate. The purpose of this paper is to assess the level of awareness and understanding of the meaning of quality and TQM from the perspective of headteachers and teachers in girls' secondary schools in Riyadh. Two types of Saudi girl schools were examined, mainstream and developed schools. The latter group has been introduced recently by the government in order to implement modern academic and management systems. Data were collected from headteachers and teachers through a closed item questionnaire. 34 questionnaires were distributed randomly to 10 secondary schools. The locations of these schools covered most regional areas in Riyadh. The collated data was computed and analysed using Excel. The final findings of this study showed a relatively low level of awareness and understanding of the meaning of TQM and of TQM principles in general. However developed schools scored a higher percentage in awareness than mainstream schools. Moreover, headteachers in both types of schools revealed higher levels of awareness than did teachers. Nonetheless, both types of schools showed low levels of TQM implementation. The final conclusion indicates the need to raise awareness of TQM and to explore its meaning among girls' schools' staff members. The results will be used to complete the researcher's main study which is to examine TQM implementation in Saudi Arabian girls' secondary schools.