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The paper attempts to synthesise the features of the model for quality management in education based on the approaches spelt out in four well‐articulated methodologies for the practice of quality in higher education. Each methodology contributes to different views of education from the learners’ and the institution's perspectives, providing elements for the model. The thrust of the model is a “transformative” approach to bring about a fundamental change in students’ understanding. In the opinion of the authors the four approaches lend themselves to be synergistically combined to form the elements of the model, which establishes the basis for quality in education in universities. This provides a prima facie validity for the synthesis of a model. A more comprehensive specification for a model for quality could be developed based on an extensive study of educational research literature.

Suggests the quality in higher education (HE) debate is currently narrowly focussed, essentially around adapting industrial quality systems. Traditionally, the notion of academic freedom was seen as the requirement of excellence in education. In more recent times (pre 1990) measures of quality control were imposed on HE, but their adoption was superficial compared to industry. The post 1990 period saw the need for a considerable increase in the quality systems activity in HE, in view of the dynamism in the sector. The adoption of quality management (QM) was preferred, because of its extensive practice in industry. Presently, its practice in HE is deteriorating into managerialism in institutions, because of lack of development of a shared vision and lack of a match between QM techniques and educational processes. Proposes a new approach to quality systems in HE. QM can still be the broad management methodology but should be adapted to educational processes and be made to preserve the traditional values of academic freedom and collegial modes of operation.

The common approaches to quality assurance (QA), as practiced by most post‐secondary education institutions for internal quality monitoring and most QA authorities for external quality monitoring (EQM), have been considered by many researchers as having largely failed to address the essence of educational quality. The purpose of this paper, although not meant to be exhaustive, is to review some of these approaches.

The paper reviews the relevant issues concerning total quality management, performance indicators and EQM, the three common approaches to the QA of post‐secondary education have been reviewed.

While from a pragmatic perspective these approaches have their respective reasons for existence, they can all be criticized as lacking rigorous theoretical foundations and being mainly driven by demands of satisfying external agendas (e.g. to enforce institutional accountability or compliance) instead of academic considerations (e.g. to facilitate student learning). As a result, a mismatch between the rhetoric and reality of educational quality has become a common experience of most practitioners, not only in western contexts from which these approaches were originated, but also in other cultural contexts that have adopted them uncritically. It is undeniable that the overall quality culture within most post‐secondary education systems worldwide, as currently manifested, tends to favor the institutional aspects rather than the student aspects of the quality issues, and tends to lean more on the accountability‐led view rather than the improvement‐led view of quality assurance.

The paper sheds some light on the quality debate in post‐secondary education.

In recent years, numerous studies in the field of service quality have been carried out. However, relatively few studies have addressed the specific context of higher education. The purpose of this study has been to examine what dimensions constitute quality in higher education and to compare these with the dimensions of quality that have been developed in general service quality research. The focus has been on academic business studies and a student perspective was chosen. First, 29 in‐depth interviews were carried out. Based on the interviews, a questionnaire was constructed and responses were obtained from 448 Austrian and Swedish students. Using factor analysis, quality dimensions were defined. These dimensions are compared with the earlier research in the area of higher education and with the general research into service quality.