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Journal of Vocational Education and Training, Volume 56, Number 2, 2004

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The Strengths and Weaknesses of

ISO 9000 in Vocational Education

THERESA L. BEVANS-GONZALES

Pennsylvania State University, USA

AJAY T. NAIR

University of Pennsylvania, USA

ABSTRACT ISO 9000 is a set of quality standards that assists an organisation

to identify, correct and prevent errors, and to promote continual

improvement. Educational institutions worldwide are implementing ISO

9000 as they face increasing external pressure to maintain accountability for

funding. Similar to other countries, in the United States vocational

education providers are implementing ISO 9000. Although ISO has beensuccessful in manufacturing and service industries, the application to

education is relatively new and not without its problems. This study used

focus group methods to investigate ISO 9000 implementation at nine career

and technical centers in Pennsylvania. The findings indicated that there are

strengths of ISO 9000 in vocational education such as an improvement in

leadership. However, a number of weaknesses of ISO 9000 were also

reported, e.g. the time-consuming implementation process. The findings are

intended to assist career and technical educators during the

implementation of ISO 9000.

In an increasing global environment, educational institutions (like othersocial institutions) are pressured to be more efficient, work better with

less funding, meet the needs of the market and engage in never-endingquality improvement efforts (Welch, 1998). In addition, there are anincreasing number of calls for educational institutions to be heldaccountable from federal and institutional funding bodies, communities,parents and students. According to Ladd (2001), educationalaccountability is dominating educational policy discussion and is a broadconcept that can be addressed in a variety of ways, one of which is tointroduce market-based reforms to education. Examples of such reforms

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include the Business Excellence Model (BEM), Malcolm Baldrige, TotalQuality Management (TQM) and ISO 9000.

The focus of this article is on the last of these quality frameworks, asISO 9000 is one such market-based quality system that has become anattractive option for a growing number of educational institutions. WhileISO 9000 is being implemented in primary, secondary and highereducation, the main concern of this article is with the most recentapplication of ISO 9000 to vocational education and training institutionsin the United States. Although the study was conducted in one country,the results contribute valuable information to the understanding of ISO9000 implementation in vocational education that may apply toinstitutions in other countries as well.

The remainder of this article is organised as follows: the empiricalresearch related to ISO 9000 and ISO 9000 in education; the methodologyand data collection, the research findings; and the conclusions andimplications for practice and future research.

Background of the Study

The concept of quality standards has existed since the ancient times withthe practice of standardising stones and wooden gauges for measurementin the civilisations of the Egyptians and Samarians. Traces of standards

for goods and products can be found throughout history with themerchants and trades men in the Roman Empire, China, India, Japan andthe Islamic world. In the fourteenth century, the King of Englandstandardised the quality of silver and gold, and during the industrialrevolution in Europe, a set of strict standards were set up in the industryof textiles. In the early nineteenth century, a series of work standardswere developed under the principle of scientific management byFrederick Winslow Taylor (Hoyle, 2001).

The first forms of modern quality standards were developed duringWorld War II by the Allies for both products and processes. During thepost-war era, in England, the use of these inspection standards graduallyincreased, and the standards were soon recognised by commercialindustries and manufacturers (Stimson, 1998). The British StandardsInstitution (BSI) created the first real commercial quality standard seriesin 1979, which they published and released as the BS5750 series ofstandards (Wealleans, 2000). In the 1980s, the BS5750 became thecornerstone for national quality and many other countries used BS5750as a basis for their own quality systems, including the USA, where theANSI 90 series of quality standards was created.

During this same period, the International Organisation forStandardisation (ISO) appointed a group to develop a set of internationalquality standards. The group created the Open Systems Interconnection(OSI), which ensured that products from different organisations and

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different countries could interact in specific areas. In 1987, ISO publishedthe first set of quality standards, ISO 9000: 1987, which were adopted byBSI in the United Kingdom and the European Committee forStandardisation Commission.

Therefore, at the end of the 1980s there existed three sets ofstandards published by different entities, which were basically the sameISO 9000: 1987standards. Finally, in 1994, the ISO 9000: 1994 series ofstandards were published and adopted by more than 60 countries inplace of their national standards. Between 1987 and 1994 the standardsunderwent approximately 250 changes that were intended forclarification (Tricker & Sherring-Lucas, 2001).

In the most recent revision, the ISO 9000: 2000 quality managementsystem consists of a set of quality standards that have been revised andimproved in order to better be applied to a wider variety of organisations.The objective of ISO has changed from a model for quality assurance to aset of standards for effective quality management. The previousstandards of ISO 9001: 1994, ISO 9002: 1994 and ISO 9003: 1994 have beenintegrated into the ISO 9001: 2000. Organisations previously certifiedunder ISO 9002: 1994 or ISO 9003: 1994 are now required to seek re-certification under ISO 9001: 2000. Similarly, organisations certified underISO 9001 must update their quality systems to meet ISO 9001: 2000requirements. These changes represent a more user-friendly standard for

educational institutions. Specifically, the language, flexibility andstructure of the new standard are inherently more compatible with theoperation of educational institutions (Praxiom Research Group Ltd, 2002).

In an organisation, ISO 9000 functions as a quality managementsystem that consists of a series of non-specific quality standards that canbe applied to the system. The standards provide a solid foundation forcontinuous quality improvement without changing the way theorganisation functions. Before becoming registered to the standards, anorganisation must comply with four levels of documentation. These levelsinclude creating a quality manual, documenting procedures and forms,documenting instructions and documenting supporting information. Oncean organisation has implemented all levels of the quality standards, anaudit is performed where documents and performance of theorganisation are checked and compared with the ISO 9000 standards. The

organisation may or may not be certified to the ISO 9000 standards,depending upon the success of the audit (Harding et al, 2000).

This certification aids organisations in the market place due to thecustomer perception of certification as quality. When purchasingproducts from companies certified under ISO 9000, a customer can beassured that the product is the same quality despite the fact that theymay buy it in China, Norway or Brazil. This quality system also assistscompanies as a business reference between clients and organisations(International Organization for Standardisation, n.d.). Furthermore, the

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ISO 9000 standards allow businesses from all over the world to apply thesame rules and regulations to their systems of production.

ISO 9000 in Education

Originally created as a quality system for the manufacturing industry, theISO 9000 international quality standards are rapidly being implemented inmany service-type organisations including educational institutions. Whileno formal statistics exist on the number of educational institutionsinvolved, there are a growing number of ISO 9000 registered schools andUS educators are not alone in this recent trend to adopt this qualitymanagement system. A variety of educational institutions in Canada,Singapore, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Australia have started toimplement ISO 9000 (Zuckerman & Rhodes, 2000).

Among the benefits that educational institutions see from the ISO9000 quality management system are improvements in the organisationalstructure and day-to-day operations. According to Waks & Moti (1999) Itchecks how the system is being run based on the assumption that properfunctioning coupled with the development of internal control will yieldbetter educational and scholastic results. However, ISO 9000 does notcome without costs and it is estimated that most school districts havespent $15,000 in registration fees with costs of $10,000 a year for an

annual audit (Zuckerman & Rhodes, 2000). These figures do not take intoconsideration any costs that an educational institution has invested inthe time required to implement the system or of the time that employeesspend away from their regular jobs working on the implementationprocess.

In 1997, both Europe and the USA developed a set of ISO 9000guidelines for education and training institutions. These include theAmerican ANSI/ASQC Z1.11-1996 Quality Assurance Standard Guidelinesfor the Application of ANSI/ISO/ASQC Q9001 or Q9002 to Education andTraining Institutions and the European Application of ISO 9000 Standards toEducation and Training: interpretation and guidelines in a Europeanperspective.

The goal of the American version of the standards is to serveprimarily two purposes:

to provide education and training institutions with the benefits ofnationally and internationally accepted requirements standards forquality assurance;

to improve the communication between training and educationinstitutions and the independent registrars (American standards 1996).

However, the USA version of the standards is similar to the originalversion of the ISO 9000 standards, and is very broadand non-specific,making it difficult for an educational institution to interpret and

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implement. In contrast, the European guidelines for the ISO 9000standards offer a more extensive, in-depth review of the ISO 9000standards, and their effects on education and training institutions. Theseguidelines are based on research conducted in 1995 in several Europeancountries (United Kingdom, France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlandsand Denmark) by the European Centre for the Development of VocationalTraining.

While no specific government policies appear to exist regarding theimplementation of ISO 9000, in the late 1980s and continuing through the1990s, committees and policies began to appear around the globe thatsupported market-driven, more efficient, quality measures in education.For example, the Committee for Quality Assurance in Higher Educationand the policy Higher Education: quality and diversity in the 1990s inAustralia and the Quality Promotion Unit in South Africa (Vidovich et al,2000). In England, the Joint Planning Group for Quality Assurance inHigher Education was established (Roffe, 1998) and, according to Welch(1998), encouraging educational institutions to serve the economy moreefficiently and take account of the economic requirements of the countrywas made clear in the 1987 UK White Paper. In Hong Kong, the EducationCommission created a comprehensive policy to improve schools in thetext ECR7: quality school education and soon after established the QualityAssurance Unit (Cheng, 2002).

Despite the fact that educational institutions around the world havestarted to implement quality assurance systems, such as ISO 9000, thereis still a debate surrounding the relevance of this quality managementsystem for education. Proponents of ISO 9000 state that since there is anamazing rate of change in the fields of technology, programs of continualimprovement and closed-loop control are appropriate and necessary forthe educational systems in order to standardise a process thatincorporates values of the customer (Waks & Moti, 1999). In addition, ISO9000 is seen by some to improve education by introducing the privatesector ideals of efficiency, reliability and free-market competition to thefield. Authors such as John Peters (1999) support ISO 9000 as a globalquality system for educational institutions as a tool to assure thateducational providers are keeping their promises to the student-customer, not necessarily to have the education content standardised.

Peters recognises the value of standardising procedures, but also thedifficulty of standardising books, relationships and the dynamic classenvironment.

On the other side, some see privatisation and market influence ashaving a negative impact on the educational systems, equality, orindividual and social development, which may actually decrease the levelof education quality (Welch, 1998). Authors, such as Geoffrey Alderman(1999) propose that a critical evaluation of the success or failure ofconcepts such as ISO 9000 and Total Quality Management (TQM) is

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lacking. According to Alderman, quality in higher education is not aboutsatisfying the customer (i.e. the student), but is rather about changing thestudent, which is not the same thing at all ... an ISO 9000 approach willnot and cannot lead, by itself, to the achievement of quality: the most itcan lead to is short-to medium, to mid-term bureaucratic proceduralcompliance. Clearly, from the previous studies on ISO 9000 in education,it is obvious that further research is needed to fully understand theimpact of ISO 9000 implementation in education. In the remainder of thisarticle, the researchers address the paucity in the literature on thisimportant topic by identifying the strengths and weaknesses of ISO 9000implementation in vocational education.

ISO 9000 in USA Vocational Education

Similar to other nation-states, the USA government is supporting qualityassurance in education at both the federal and state levels. In October1998 the Perkins Vocational and Applied Technology Education Amendmentwas passed. This federal government legislation has a number ofobjectives that promote reform and innovation in USA vocational andtechnical education. In addition to student improvement, the Perkins Actwill ensure continual improvement, an optimal return on federalinvestment monies and puts into effect a USA state performance

accountability system (Office of Vocational and Adult Education, 1999). Anumber of educational institutions in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Colorado andDelaware have already qualified for the implementation process of thestandards (Zuckerman & Rhodes, 2000)

At the state level, the Pennsylvania Department of Education fundedthe implementation and piloting of the ISO 9000 standards at the careerand technical centers (CTC) involved in this study. According to Nair(2002), the Pennsylvania Department of Education feels that ISO 9000creates a workforce development system in career and technicaleducation that is accountable, cost-effective, and strives for continuousimprovement. Nair (2002) has done the most extensive research on ISO9000 in US career and technical education, and has explored ISO 9000 as aquality management system used to achieve performance accountability.In his research, Nair (2002) discovered that the ability of schoolemployees to make decisions and problem solve were improved by theISO 9001 quality initiative. In addition, Nair (2002) reported that, after ISO9000 implementation, the schools had an improvement of their generalprocesses and an increased credibility in the community. Nair (2002) alsodiscovered that schools face difficulties in implementing ISO 9000, suchas an increased amount of paperwork and lack of employee time tocommit to the implementation process. With data obtained from ninefocus groups conducted at CTC in Pennsylvania, the authors explored thequalitative data that will be used to advance the research on ISO 9000 in

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educational institutions and inform the decision of a CTC to implementISO 9000 as their quality management system. The objective of the focusgroups was to obtain the feelings and opinions about the ISO 9000experiences from the employees at a CTC.

Population

The study consisted of a focus group conducted at nine CTC in the state

of Pennsylvania during the months of January to March 2002. Theparticipating career and technical schools were SUN Area Career andTechnology Center, Berks County Career and Technology Center, SteelCenter AVTS, Erie County Technical School, Middle Bucks Institute ofTechnology, Mercer County Career Center, Delaware County TechnicalSchools, Venango Technology Center and Greater Altoona Career andTechnology Center. The Vocational Educations studies in this researchproject have the common organisational goal of meeting the training andtechnical education needs of local youth and adults in their respectivecommunities.

Selection of Subjects

Subjects for the focus groups were selected using a simple random

selection. From the school administration, the researcher obtained a listof all employees and their job titles or classification. A computer wasutilised to create a table of the list of employees, separating them intobroad occupational categories of administration, faculty, staff, and themutually exclusive categories of male and female. Participants wereselected randomly from each cell of the table until the size andcomposition of the group reflected the population of the center. Groupsof 12 were selected since more than 12 participants are difficult tomanage and do not promote active involvement by all individuals. Aselection of 12 also provides for the possibility that at least twoparticipants will not show up for the focus group (Stewart & Shamdasani,1990). Any subject who declined to participate in the group was replacedusing the same method of simple random selection.

Focus Group Protocol

Invitations

Invitations were sent to all focus group participants by a fax machine. Theinvitations were handed out by the administration as this encouragedemployee participation. The letter gave a brief description of thediscussions date, time, location and topic. At a number of the schools,the discussion took place around a meal or refreshments, which was also

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mentioned in the letter since food tends to relax participants andencourages participations by eliminating concerns about meals (Stewart& Shamdasani, 1990).

Location

Since the environment in which a focus group is held is a factor in theability of the group to achieve the objective of the discussion and the

moderator to adequately lead the discussion, it was important to choosethe correct location for the focus groups (Greenbaum, 1988). In fact,focus groups function at optimal levels if they are held in a familiar andclose location to the participants (Stewart & Shamdasani, 1990).Therefore, all of the focus groups were conducted at the schools. Thediscussions were conducted in a comfortable room such as the schoolrestaurant (closed to normal customers for the duration of thediscussion) or a conference room. The seating included tables and wasarranged to be comfortable and to easily encourage participation in theconversation (Greenbaum, 1988).

Discussion

Stage I: introduction. At the beginning of the focus group session, the

moderator welcomed everyone to the session and thanked everyone forattending. The moderator made introductions to the group regarding hername, company, role in the discussion and information on length of thesession. Participants were given a general overview of the discussion andintroduced to the concept of the video camera to avoid discomfort.Ground rules about the discussion were also provided and an importancewas given to the opinions of each person. The informed consent formswere discussed, signed and collected (Greenbaum, 1988).Stage II: questions. The first set of questions served as a warm-up/icebreaker for the groups and consisted of general information about eachperson. In a round robin style discussion so each person would have thechance to speak, the participants were asked the following questions:

Name?Job title?How long have you employed at the center?How long have you been employed in vocational education?Are you a member of the quality team?The next question was intended to warm-up the participants to thesubject of discussion, which was ISO 9000. The moderator used an easelthat contained three columns of categories marked positive, negative andneutral. The participants were asked to randomly call out an adjective

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that described their personal feelings about ISO 9000 or their experiencewith ISO 9000. The moderator would then write each adjective in thecorresponding category for the participants to view.

After the participants described their feelings of ISO 9000 in general,they were given a handout with the eight management principles of ISO9000 along with the definitions. These principles include customer focus,leadership, involvement of people, process approach, system approachto management, continual improvement, factual approach to decisionmaking and mutually beneficial supplier relationships (Goetsch & Davis,2002). From these eight principles, the groups were asked to expresstheir feelings and opinions about how ISO 9000 affected these items intheir school. The questions were phrased, for example, how do you feelISO 9000 has affected the customer focus of the center? What impact hasISO 9000 had on the leadership of the center?

After completing the conversation about the eight principles of ISO9000, the participants were then asked to do a sentence completionactivity that was following by a round-robin discussion of their answers.The sentence completion exercise contained the following questions:

When I first found out that my school would be using ISO 9001, I felt Now, as I think about the impact of ISO 9001, what really helped the

process was What got in the way was I was surprised that Stage III: closing. During the closing stage of the discussion, the moderatorasked each participant to identify one item from the discussion that wasimportant. Then, the moderator gave a brief summary of the discussiontopics that surfaced and highlighted the most important items. Themoderator asked the group if anything was missed or if they wished toadd any other comments. The moderator then thanked the group fortheir participation signaling the end of the session.

Findings

In order to obtain and analyse the data from the focus groups effectively,the researcher utilised the methodological approach of grounded theory,which consists of identifying categories or coding the data collectedfrom the people under study. These categories are not representations ofthe data, but indicated by the data and can be used to reflect patterns(Dey, 1999). Therefore, the data received from the focus groups at eachCTC was recorded and compared with the data from the other CTCs. Thedata was then coded into two categories, strengths and weaknesses ofISO 9000 implementation in a CTC.

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Strengths of ISO 9000 Implementation

All of the centers, especially, the centers that are in the beginning of theimplementation process, view ISO 9000 as having a beneficial future forthe center. Many focus group members expressed a feeling of hope withstatements like I hope, and change is for the better. They also said, itsounds like it (ISO 9000) could be a really positive thing for the school, itgives us hope and later we will have more involvement, when we have toprocess our orders. Despite most employees having little experience

with the quality system, ISO 9000 created a positive impact on theemployees. One member said, the more I look at it the more I see how itis going to work; I see that it is beneficial. Another member stated,eventually it (ISO 9000) will make a positive impact on the center.

ISO 9000 was also seen to have a positive impact on the leadershipand administration at the career and technical centers. The focus groupsparticipants shared the observation that ISO 9000 caused the schoolleadership to become distributed rather than top down. The ISO 9000standards also were felt to be more efficient on the management side,and that the leadership of the school became more aware, and make a lotof things apparent. ISO 9000 also made the leaders go throughdocumentation in order to justify implementing something or changingsomething.

A few of the tangible advantages of ISO 9000 that were seen by thefocus groups were the organisation and timesaving created by IS0 9000through streamlining tasks and improving the efficiency of the center.Members reported that our responses to situations are very organisedand this leads to further improvements in other areas and we have abetter approach to solving everyday problems. One teacher pointed outthat ISO 9000 helped with resources, since before we just did itourselves, but now ISO 9000 has made us aware of what we have to do tomaintain our standards. A cosmetology teacher pointed out that due toISO 9000 we updated chemicals and things we really didnt use. In my lab,I had to label across the board what was in each closet and for mystudents it really helped. In general, ISO 9000 tended to aid the centerswith organisation: ISO 9000 helped in getting organised and knowingexactly what to do, what forms to use. One member of the staff said that

ISO 9000 streamlines people who do similar tasks. As opposed to havingfive ways to do the same thing, you have one way of doing it.

It was also noted that the implementation of ISO 9000 in the CTClinked and demonstrated the worth of the center to other organisationsand industry. One member expressed the value of this by saying we do alot with business and industry so it may be easier to have a conversationwith them if we were using the same management systems, sameterminology, it would make it easier to communicate with them. Another

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person agreed with him by saying ISO 9000 brings credibility to thevocational technical education. An administrator stated:

For what we do and the type of education that we provide, itgives us the needed link and gives credence to us that we haveclose ties to industry. Were showing academic educators,school districts that we know what were doing. We are ontrack with industry and it gives us credence with industry froman education standpoint. Because if theyve gone through it

and they see weve gone through it and that gives us instantcredibility.

When questioned about how the ISO 9000 implementation processinvolved the employees of the center, there were both positive andnegative comments. The centers that were most successful in theimplementation of ISO 9000 stated that ISO 9000 involved people moreand that they became a team player type thing because everyone wasgoing for the same objective. Other focus group participants madepositive comments such as everyone had to step up to the plate andthat the organisation pulled together for a common goal. They agreedwith the fact that having ISO 9000 as their quality system gives theopportunity for everybody to get involved with the improvement processat the school or it affords everybody the opportunity.

The most important factor in the successful implementation of ISO9000 at the career and technical centers was the quality team, alsoreferred to as the audit team or the in-house team. All focus groupmembers reported that the quality team members were veryapproachable and that our team here has really trained us. Themembers of the quality team are the ones that employees went to if theyhad questions or needed help with the ISO 9000 forms. As one secretaryreported, What really helped was my coworker was on the audit team, sowhen I have a question, I just talk to the girl at the next desk. One focusgroup expressed that ISO 9000 would not have been possible without thetime and energy of the quality team. The same theme was expressed inmost of the focus groups, such as our in-house team really helped, theymade it very much non-threatening and relatively painless.

Weaknesses of ISO 9000 Implementation

The focus group participants at all CTCs were confused about theapplication of ISO 9000 to education. One focus group member reportedthat I am confused and curious as to how it (ISO 9000) is going to applyto education. Other participants agreed with the statement saying, ISO9000 is not applicable to us and all things you are looking for cantalways be found in ISO 9000. At least one person in every focus group

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stated that I understand its (ISO 9000) application in the industry realmmore so than in education.

Other deterrents of the ISO 9000 implementation were the facts thatthe standards are time consuming and paper intensive. Focus groupparticipants at all of the schools reported that ISO 9000 is work intensiveand going to take time. They felt that ISO 9000 requires many meetingsand much documentation. One focus group member stated that if youhad a third party doing it, which I know has occurred at other schools, itwould not infringe on all of our time. Most of the teachers werefrustrated at the time spent away from classrooms commenting, morepaperwork, less class time and felt like they already had full workloads.One participant stated, as a secretary, um ... it caused a lot of extra workfor us, it was overwhelming ... but, now I think that its great. Evenmembers of the administration were frustrated with the time-consumingelement of ISO 9000 as one said that it:

involved people, but that could be construed as negativebecause if you look at the initial reaction, the glaring thing thatis showing is that its time consuming. In essence, we have jobsto do and to impose this upon us; it takes us away from ourother tasks.

The focus group participants also stressed the fact that they viewed ISO

9000 as another fad to implement in the school that wont be finished.They made comments such as ISO 9000 is one more thing that will bestarted and not finished and that it was just another labor intensiveprogram that will come and go. A few of the schools were very negativewhen they expressed comments like ISO 9000 is just another initiativethat doesnt have much to do with my job as an instructor or here we goreinventing the wheel again.

One of the biggest problems that the centers faced was theemployees lack of information of ISO 9000. The majority of focus groupparticipants reported feelings of not having enough information about thedefinition of the standards or the implementation process. They felt thatnot enough people knew what was going on. One member questioned,Why are teachers the last to know? Information should be shared and notkept at the top. Similarly, another person stated, I am still surprised

about how little I know about ISO 9000. Routinely, when they were askedabout involvement of people in the ISO 9000 principles, the employeesexpressed that they felt out of the loop, in the dark, and that theyreceived no clear answers from the administration.

As stated earlier, there was conflict in the focus groups about theinvolvement of people in the ISO 9000 process. In general, the schoolsthat had the least success or were the slowest in the implementationprocess had complaints about lack of personal involvement with ISO9000. Most of the comments came from teachers or instructors that felt

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left out of the loop by the administration that was implementing thestandards. One instructor commented, I am surprised that the teacherswerent more involved and it would be nice to know what was going on.Another teacher stated that they had received one in-service day andthat was it ... two or three years ago. There also seemed to be hostilityabout the lack of involvement as was evident by one comment from aculinary arts instructor who said ISO 9000 is being shoved down mythroat and I dont even know what it is.

A final major deterrent for the implementation process of ISO 9000in the career and technical centers was the difficulty understanding andapplying the language of ISO 9000 to the educational setting. Participantswere frustrated with translating and attempting to understand who arethe customers? What is the product? Who are the suppliers? They hadfeelings such as It gets frustrating trying to look at the procedures andtrying to implement them and also said the terminology needs to bematched to what our language is. What we know and what we talk eachand every day is not the terminology that ISO 9000 uses and it causesmass confusion.

Comparison of Centers

Another vital aspect in the research findings can be observed through the

comparison of the most successful and least successful centers in theimplementation process of ISO 9000. Comparing a success with a failuremay provide data that can be applied to other situations about what willlead to a successful implementation of ISO 9000 or what type of a careerand technical center should implement ISO 9000. For reasons ofconfidentiality, the most successful school will be referred to as Center Aand the least successful as Center B.

First, general observations can be made about the behavior of thefocus groups at each center. It is important to note that the focus groupscontained a similar proportion of people; each contained only onemember of administration and at least one member of the quality team.The remaining members of the groups were secretaries and instructorswith a variety of backgrounds.

At Center A, the focus group was open and friendly, there wascomradeship within the group and there was often laughter during thediscussion. Although a member of administration was present, neitherthe group nor the administrator showed signs of tension while expressingopinions or feelings about the implementation process of ISO 9000. Also,there seemed to be no sign of a struggle between the administration andthe other employees. Although Center A expressed feelings of ISO 9000such as being overwhelmed or that ISO 9000 was time consuming, theywere very positive about the results and also described ISO 9000 asorganised, systematic, fair and revealing. The group viewed

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standardisation as positive for the school, making them all go in thesame line. The focus group at Center A was pleased with the outcome ofISO 9000 in their school, and attributed the success to the quality teameffort and devotion, also stating that since no member of administrationhad been on the team this had caused less stress during the process andmore devotion by the other employees of the school. All the focus groupmembers felt well informed and involved in the process, and thereforewere more apt to support the implementation and all of the requirements.

In contrast, the focus group at Center B was very quiet and evenhostile toward the research team at the beginning of the discussion. Theywere upset about having to be involved in the discussion group sincethey did not feel very involved in the ISO 9000 process. The groupdescribed ISO 9000 as painful, lengthy, unknown, confusing, animposition, time consuming and mandatory. The group was alsoconcerned about standardising too much in the school such as forms ofinstruction. Throughout the course of the discussion, the tensionbetween the employees and the administrator was very visible, and oftenthe group attacked the actions of the administration leaving theadministrator to defend himself or other leaders at the center. Theadministrator was also very defensive about the leaderships decision toimplement ISO 9000 even though they had not involved the employees atthat point in time. Most of the employees were not aware of ISO 9000

being implemented at the center and did not have much knowledge of theISO 9000 standards. There was also very little mention of the quality teamexcept from the one member of the group involved in the team. One ofthe most important points of the discussion was that the group identifiedthe centers problem as a lack of communication at all levels; not onlyisolated to the implementation process of ISO 9000. At this point in time,even after 3 years in the process, the ISO 9000 implementation has notreached the instructors and most of the staff, but is still at the top levelsof management. Therefore, this center was viewed as unsuccessful in theimplementation process of ISO 9000.

Important factors for the successful implementation of ISO 9000according to Goetsch & Davis (2002) are to have commitment to the ISO9000 registration from the highest level of management since onlymanagement controls the necessary resources, only management can

overcome resistance to change and management needs to set an exampleto the rest of the staff during the implementation process. Goetsch &Davis also note that an important aspect is to have an informed team andstaff about the ISO 9000 process. These same factors can be viewed insection 4.1.1 of the ANSI/ISO/ASQC Q9001 Standards for Education andTraining,as it is managements responsibility to document its qualitypolicy and make sure that it is understood, implemented and maintainedby the entire organisation. These factors are supported in thiscomparison of Centers A and B. A few of the major factors contributing to

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These weaknesses are also supported by the problems and disadvantagesdiscovered by Van den Berge (1997) for the implementation of ISO 9000,which consist of interpretation and relevance problems of the standardsin education, time consumption, lack of guidance and the high level ofpaperwork.This data offers very important implications for practice since it has beengenerated from employees at CTC who have been personally involvedwith the implementation process. These strengths and weaknesses forISO 9000 implementation may inform CTC administration, governmentand other educational institutions, during the implementation of the ISO9000 quality system. The comparison of two centers in theimplementation process of ISO 9000 provided in the study also will informadministration of the necessary support and resources that they need toprovide if they decide to implement ISO 9000 as a new system, as well asproblems they may face due to communication challenges within theschool.

The research findings collected in the focus groups are a valuablebeginning to the study of ISO 9000 as a quality system for vocationaleducation. While ISO 9000 seems to offer benefits such as streamliningoperations and drawing schools closer to industry, there are limitationsincluding the time-consuming, confusing and expensive process ofimplementation. Future research is needed to identify factors that result

in successful ISO 9000 implementation, for example, the size of school,previous quality systems, current quality culture and the managementcommitment to ISO 9000. We also recommend research on the long-termresults of utilising market-driven tools for education quality and otherquality models that may be more appropriate for educational institutions.

Correspondence

Theresa L. Bevans-Gonzales, Pennsylvania State University, KellerBuilding 0301, University Park, PA 16802, USA ([email protected]).

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