DEVELOPING LEADERSHIP AND MANAGERIAL COMPETENCIES FOR EFFECTIVE HIGHER EDUCATION QUALITY ASSURANCE: THE CASE OF THE UWI

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DEVELOPING LEADERSHIP AND MANAGERIAL COMPETENCIES
FOR EFFECTIVE HIGHER EDUCATION QUALITY ASSURANCE
THE CASE OF THE UWI

• Eduardo Ali
• Campus Quality Assurance Officer
• The University of West Indies
• Cave Hill, Barbados

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Building Effective HE Systems

• Uncertainty in global environment has
  implications for HE modernization
• Remaining fiercely competitive is advantageous to
  HE institutions
• Building effective QA systems can enhance
  institutional competitiveness
• Continuous quality enhancement strategies support
  institutional development
• An effective leadership culture promotes
  institutional development

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Leadership Development and Quality
Assurance

• Good leadership has
• 5 key enablers leadership policy and strategy
  processes partnerships and resources people
• 4 results areas performance results customer
  satisfaction people results society results
  
• These all impact institutional improvement
  benchmarking, performance results and service
  delivery

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Leadership Development and Quality
Assurance (contd)

• Penn State Universitys Excellence in Leadership
  Management Program provides professional
  development for all leaders on campus to support
  campus growth and improvement
• Cornell Universitys Discovering Leadership
  Program offers leadership development activities
  for leaders to acquire strengths for personal and
  organizational growth
• University of Wisconsin-Stouts Leadership
  Development Action Project initiated to satisfy
  quality improvement goals of university for
  accreditation (see http//www3.uwstout.edu/aqip/ap
  _02.cfm)

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Leadership Development and Quality
Assurance (contd)

• Liverpool John Moores University (UK) has course
  in Developing Professional Practice and uses
  Staff and Educational Development Association PDF
  standards for management and leadership
  development to support improvement
• University of Newcastle (Australia) offers
  Leadership Development Programme for senior
  staff to support organizational learning and
  continuous improvement
• (http//www.newcastle.edu.au/service/staff-develo
  pment/index.html)

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UWI- Strengths in Building Quality
Assurance

• 10 years experience in academic quality assurance
  through cycles of quality audits, evaluations and
  reviews of disciplines
• Built feedback system within disciplines and
  encouraged evidenced-based analysis for quality
  assurance
• Provided useful tools and resources to academics
  to prepare audits and evaluations and to enhance
  academic quality

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UWI- Gaps Towards Building Quality
Assurance

• QA System has not reached all levels within
  university system or all personnel
• QA System assumed that all personnel had
  requisite competencies for leading and managing
  quality
• There was no formally approved leadership and
  managerial training provided for academic and
  non-academic leaders to enhance quality within
  the institution

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UWI- The Strategic Choices

• Strategic Aim 5 Transforming Leadership and
  Managerial Culture and Processes includes
• developing and establishing a people-centred,
  culture-change process
• instituting a quality assurance mechanism to set
  people-centred standards for the functioning of
  the University and the service output
• reforming the administrative structures and
  systems towards implementing and supporting the
  vision and aspirations of UWI
• strengthening the structure and processes for
  University-wide planning

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UWI Cave Hill- Strategic Choices

• Campus established a quality management system
  with several key strategic areas of quality
  analysis and enhancement
• Leadership and Change
• Strategic Planning and Improvement
• Customer, Stakeholder and Market Focus
• Knowledge Management, Measurement and Analysis
• Faculty and Staff Management and Development
• Educational and Business Process Management
• Educational and Business Results-Based Management

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Competency Areas for QA Leadership and
Management
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Online Survey Methodology

• QE Leadership Workshop held in February 2009
  informed survey
• Purpose was to capture data on staff competencies
  and to gauge the levels and kinds of training
  needed
• Was meant to perform a statistical analysis of
  how staff view themselves as leaders and managers
  of quality
• Was designed for senior and middle managers,
  senior faculty and professional staff initially
• Obtained staff feedback of their knowledge,
  skills and attitudinal competencies through
  self-assessment/appraisal
• Can enable the campus administration to have a
  key sense of the level of capability of staff and
  their ability to manage and improve quality on
  the campus
• Can permit the leadership of the campus to train
  and develop their staff to enhance the campus and
  university systems

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Online Survey Methodology (contd)

• Questionnaire had 3 parts employment data
  self-assessment competency rating of 49
  competencies using a 5-point likert scale and
  training needs assessment
• E-focus group of academics and professionals
  vetted questionnaire
• Posted online using Limesurvey
• Emailed to 1,000 participants from staff database
  over 3 weeks
• Overall response rate was 12.3 with
  participation by 48.9 junior professionals and
  administrative staff, 38.7 mid level
  professional and academic personnel and just
  about 11.4 senior professionals and academics
• Data analyzed using SPSS

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Online Survey Results Personnel

• Table Campus Personnel- No. Years Work
  Experience

No. Years Work Experience Percentage
0-3 years 9.1
4-8 years 13.6
9-15 years 19.3
Over 15 years 53.4
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Online Survey Results Personnel

• Table Campus Personnel- No. Years UWI
  Experience

No. Years Work Experience Percentage
0-3 years 23.86
4-8 years 29.54
9-15 years 22.73
Over 15 years 22.73
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Online Survey Results Personnel

• Table Campus Personnel- No. Years Quality
  Systems Experience

No. Years Work Experience Percentage
0-3 years 43.2
4-8 years 21.6
9-15 years 20.45
Over 15 years 7.95
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Online Survey Results Staff Exposure to
Quality

• Figure 1 (a)- ATS Staff Exposure to Quality
  Systems

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Online Survey Results Staff Exposure to
Quality

• Figure 1 (b)- Lecturer/Asst. Lecturer Staff
  Exposure to Quality Systems

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Online Survey Results Broad Competency
Areas

• Organization, Culture and Practices- knowledge,
  attitudes and skills as they relate to university
  organization systems, academic traditions,
  corporate culture, policies and practices
• Information Management- knowledge, attitudes and
  skills as they relate to designing, managing or
  using information management systems such as
  document management and data storage systems
• Quality Systems, Academic Evaluation and
  Accreditation- knowledge, attitudes and skills as
  they relate to academic course and programme
  quality, quality systems, peer evaluation and
  accreditation systems
• Project Management- knowledge, attitudes and
  skills as they relate to developing, monitoring
  and implementing projects).

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Online Survey Results Organization,
Culture and Practices

• All staff reported having general competencies in
  dealing with the organization, its culture and
  practices
• More than 50 of senior appointed posts who
  agreed, actually just agreed and did not
  strongly agree implying that they were not as
  competent in this area as expected
• Referring to this point some interesting comments
  were made
• Dean- 30 years management experience counts
  for a lot!
• Senior Lecturer- I do not know where UWI wants
  to go
• Lecturer- I believe my goals and objectives
  should match that of UWI

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Online Survey Results Information
Management

• All staff reported having general competencies in
  dealing with information management
• Over 79 indicated that they agreed they were
  competent information managers
• ATS and senior administrative/professional staff
  reported having greater levels of competence with
  information management than academic personnel
• Referring to this point some interesting comments
  were made
• Dean- UWI needs to use more integrated mobile
  communication systems and video conferencing
  and shed a load of other stuff
• Lecturer- Not sure if UWI wants to be managed
  here. Leadership is needed
• ATS- It is as good as it gets now

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Online Survey Results Quality Systems,
Academic Evaluation and Accreditation

• While the level of competence reported seems
  relatively high, that is, above 50 in all cases,
  the level reported for academic staff was highest
  (76)
• Referring to this point some interesting comments
  were made
• Senior Lecturer- Now is time to decentralize
  academic decision-making to individual
  departments and faculties
• Senior Lecturer- More transparent criteria and
  processes for faculty recruitment and
  promotion is needed for quality assurance

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Online Survey Results Project
Management

• Most staff (79or above) at all levels said they
  were competent in project management.
• If this is the case, this is a remarkable
  achievement given that project management
  competence is a specialist advancing discipline
  requiring continuous training and retraining
• Furthermore if the staff consists of competent
  project managers then the level of micro-business
  efficiency should be very high

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Online Survey Results Staff Training

• Respondents showed different expectations of
  training in quality assurance and enhancement
  leadership and management
• ATS staff showed very mixed responses, though the
  majority saw training investment in leadership
  and management skills (31 and 28 respectively),
  peer evaluation (32), total quality management
  (27) and self assessment/evaluation (31)
  necessary
• Senior professional staff (38 in each case)
  wanted training in total quality management (TQM)
  or in most areas
• Though not many, senior lecturers (29) seemed to
  have preferred management and TQM skills training
  rather than being trained in leadership
• Assistant lecturers and lecturers (69) felt that
  leadership skills training would be more useful
• Blended learning was the preferred choice of
  training modality but 100 directors wanted
  face-to-face (F2F) training ONLY
• ATS staff preferred certificate (35) and diploma
  (44) level course

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Online Survey Results Staff Training

• Blended learning was the preferred choice of
  training modality
• 100 directors wanted face-to-face (F2F) training
  ONLY
• ATS staff preferred certificate (35) and diploma
  (44) level courses
• ATS would want a short route professional
  programme that has currency within a university
  given their required level of education and
  training
• Mid-level professionals, academics and senior
  managers preferred postgraduate diploma courses
  (over 60)
• Other staff who hold degrees would see
  postgraduate training as means to career
  advancement while helping them improve their jobs

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Conclusions Looking to the Future

• Revealed some main assumptions about the staff
  capacity to interface with quality systems from
  design through to implementation
• Staff perceptions of their own competence may not
  be the norm within the wider international
  academic and corporate communities
• Some persons felt that university experience,
  prior training in their discipline and individual
  capacity to do work is adequate
• Several persons reported they needed wide-ranging
  training suggesting that the competency levels
  that have been reported may not be actually
  precise
• ATS, professional and junior academic staff were
  concerned about succession planning and becoming
  future leaders within the university
• Senior academics and heads of units/offices did
  not see the value in training but if they did
  wanted management training to deal with current
  work issues

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Conclusions Looking to the Future

• Challenge to university now given its strategic
  direction for next 3 years although UWI has
  invested more staff and other resources into
  quality enhancement and assurance
• If leadership and managerial capacity is not
  realistically developed would ultimately lead to
  concerns about institutional management and
  development
• This has implications for resource management in
  already period of much constraints
• If leadership does not make strategically sound
  quality choices, governments which are UWIs
  major investor would be less inclined to provide
  development financing
• Without proper strategic leadership and
  management dedicated to actionable quality
  assurance and enhancement, there would be
  problems in meeting total quality commitments and
  matching external quality assurance/review
  standards established by accreditation agencies

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Thank you

• Questions Please????????