Int. J. Services Technology and Management, Vol. 7, No.

4, 2006 403

Effectiveness of ISO 9000 standards in Indian

educational institutions: a survey

Chandandeep Singh* and Kuldeep Sareen

Department of Mechanical and Production Engineering,
Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College,
Gill park, Ludhiana, Punjab, India
E-mail: cdsg@rediffmail.com E-mail: sareen_kk@rediffmail.com
*Corresponding author

Abstract: ISO 9000 standards are rapidly being implemented in many service
industries such as educational institutions, banking sectors and postal services
etc. These standards are gaining popularity in educational institutions in
particular. Absence of any quality standard specific to education sector has
given a scope to implement ISO 9000 quality standards in educational
institutions. This paper presents the detailed survey carried out to find out the
contribution of ISO 9000 standards in Indian educational institutions. This
paper reveals the motives of implementing ISO 9000 standards in educational
institutions and its benefits to organisation. These benefits are segregated into
four different parts as benefits to system, faculty, students and external benefits
to organisation. The survey reveals that the most important motive of the
institutions is documentation of the systems of the institute. The encouraging
factor is that institutions are being befitted from ISO 9000 certification.
Keywords: benefits; educational institutions; ISO 9000; motives.
Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Singh, C. and Sareen, K.
(2006) ‘Effectiveness of ISO 9000 standards in Indian educational institutions:
a survey’, Int. J. Services Technology and Management, Vol. 7, No. 4,
pp.403–415.
Biographical notes: Chandandeep Singh is a Lecturer in the Department of
Mechanical and Production Engineering and Deputy Dean Administration at
Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College, Ludhiana. He holds the Master of
Technology in Industrial Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology,
Delhi. He is also holding the responsibility of ISO coordinator for successful
implementation and follows up of ISO 9000 certification in the institution. His
areas of interest are Total Quality Management, Quality Management Systems,
Operations Management and Supply Chain Management. He is teaching
courses in Total Quality Management, Modelling and Simulation and Supply
Chain Management. He has number of articles in International and national
journals and conferences.
Kuldeep Sareen is a Lecturer in the Department of Mechanical and Production
Engineering at Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College, Ludhiana. He also holds
the responsibility of Deputy Dean PG studies. He did Master of Technology in
Mechanical Design from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. He has
consulting experience in leading private organisations. His areas of interest are
Product design and development, Management information systems and
modelling and simulation. He has number of articles in International and
national journals and conferences.

Copyright © 2006 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

404 C. Singh and K. Sareen

1 Introduction

The quality system was originally created for manufacturing industry. Now service
industry is also making lots of effort to improve their service quality. These ISO 9000
international quality standards are being implemented in many service organisations such
as educational institutions, banking services, postal services, etc. Globalisation of market,
heightened quality requirements through tough competition and mushrooming of
educational institutes have lead to the quality thrusts nationally and internationally.
Educational institutes are pressurised to be more efficient, work better with less funding,
meet the needs of market and engage in long lasting quality improvement efforts.
Absence of any grading system or a specific quality standard of educational institutes in
India has given a scope to implement ISO 9000 in educational institutions. As a
consequence of quality movement in industry, educational institutions are inspired to go
for some sort of quality management system in order to gain competitive advantage and
to promote a strategic development of educational institutes. A variety of educational
institution in USA, Canada, Singapore, UK and Australia has started to implement ISO
9000 (Zuckerman and Rhodes, 2000).
Many vocational educational institutes have thrust to the quality management system
of ISO 9000 in order to establish consistency and control over the quality of such
education. Nair and Gonzales (2004) investigated the strengths and weakness of ISO
9000 quality management systems in vocational education.
ISO 9000 is a set of quality standards that assist an organisation to identify, correct
and prevent error, and promote continual improvement. Educational institutions are
implementing ISO 9000, as they have to face stiff global competition. ISO 9000
standards were revised in 1994 and then 2000. The latest standard of ISO 9001:2000 is
designed to meet the needs of service sector including education sector. The recent
change has decreased the number of available quality system models from three to only
one, and major requirements from twenty to following four:
1 Management Responsibility
2 Resource Management
3 Product Realisation
4 Measurement Analysis and Improvement.
These changes represent a more user friendly standard for educational institutions. Elmuti
(1996) stated that the ISO 9000 improves operational efficiency and communication
within the organisation. It provides uniform products with competitive edge and hence
results in greater customer loyalty and market share. Webster (1997) suggests that the
ISO 9000 system enables a company to look closely at its management practices and
identify areas of improvement.
Gotzamani (2004) conducted empirical study on the contribution of ISO 9000
standards towards total quality management. It revealed long-term effectiveness and
contribution of quality management system in Greek industry. Yeung, Lee and Chan
(2003) studied the objectives of getting ISO certification, attitude to implementation and
confidence of understanding the standard among senior management affect the
development of a QMS and subsequently organisational performance. Mittal et al. (2002)
conducted an empirical study to find out the benefits and problems of ISO 9000
 Effectiveness of ISO 9000 standards 405

implementation faced by small and medium scale industries of India. Barbara and Maling
(2000) suggested eight dimensions for evaluating the impact of ISO 9000 on
organisations. Number of researchers provided reviews and case studies of implementing
TQM in higher education (Lindstorm, 1994; Lo and Sculli, 1996; Owlia and Aspinwall,
1997; Waks and Frank, 1999). The effective implementation of these quality
management systems could provide a foundation on which TQM could be attained
(Gotzamani and Tsiotras, 2001)
This paper is an attempt to explore the practice of ISO 9000 standards in Indian
educational institutions. This study explores the motives of implementing ISO 9000
standards, problems faced during implementation and benefits after implementation of
this standard in educational institutes of India.

2 ISO 9000 standards in education

Education itself is a multi-million dollar industry and is very important for country’s
development. Education is vital for society and no one can ignore its role and
contribution. Quality assurance in education is a multifaceted problem. The quality of an
educational institute is expected to be perfect by various stakeholders such as parents,
students, industry and society. Student and their parents are rightfully questioning the
quality of curriculum, instructional delivery, the learning environment and improvement
of knowledge. The competitive environment demands students to have in depth and
practical knowledge, understanding of their specific area along with interpersonal and
communication skills. As a society we want that institution must ensure quality of
education to provide able professionals for continuous growth and development
(Karapetrovic et al., 1998).
The main purpose of ISO 9000 in education is to provide confidence to the
professionals, students and their parents, employees and various other stakeholders.
There are only a limited number of articles concerns quality standard, implementation
and TQM adoption in educational institution. Authors such as Peters John (1999) support
ISO 9000 as a global quality system for educational institution and assure that education
providers are keeping their promises to the students. Karapetrovic (2001) addressed the
issues of why and how engineering schools could implement the ISO 9001:2000
standard. A seven-step approach to implement ISO 9001:2000 was proposed. Nair and
Gonzales (2004) discovered that the ability of school employees to make decisions and to
solve problems was improved by the ISO 9000. The schools had an improvement of their
general procedures and an increased credibility in the community. Mittal (2002) come
across some quality issues in schools where implementation of ISO 9000 provided a
framework to improve existing resources and processes. The scope of application ranges
from relatively small laboratories to whole institute (Chin et al., 1994; Moreland and
Clark, 1998).
Presently educational institutions in India are also facing a challenging environment
similar to that of any other service organisation. Some of the questions raised in different
articles are:
1 Do quality management systems really encourage continuous improvement in
educational institution?
2 What are the motives of educational institutions behind certification?
406 C. Singh and K. Sareen

3 Can ISO 9000 certification boost and enhance institution’s commitment to quality
education?
4 Is it really a sign of commitment or just another marketing tool?
5 Can it serve as a first step towards accreditation of institutions and total quality
management?

2.1 Motives of ISO 9000 standards

Educational institutions, wishing to implement ISO 9000 quality management systems,
have number of motives behind its implementation. Rajamani et al.(1998) pointed that
documentation is one of the motives of educational institutions to implement such quality
management systems. Documentation improves understanding among faculty and staff
and can be used to train newly hired staff (Harris and Oven, 1994). The overall systems
of educational institute can be streamlined; quality problems can be identified, corrected
and prevented in a systematic manner (Karapetrovic, 2001). Doherty (1995) expressed
that a educational institution get the market advantage by mentioning in market brochures
such as ‘First ISO certified engineering school in country’. Berghe (1997) conducted a
survey in UK institutions and found that institutions sought the standards to improve
market share and for promotional purposes. So market and government accreditation
benefits are generated.
Government accreditation is essential for every educational institution in India.
Therefore implementation of ISO 9000 quality management systems in India is
considered as the driving force to get accreditation certification/designation from
government agencies.

2.2 Benefits of ISO 9000 standards to educational institution

The standards’ long-term contribution to the organizations may be positive, neutral or
negative, depending on the way that companies choose to implement them (Tsiotras and
Gotzamani, 1996). ISO 9000 standards have made strong impact on institutions, faculty,
staff and students. Beaver (1994) pointed out that quality management is very essential to
reassure that educational institutions perform well and that the customers of education are
being well served. In accordance with the classification given in Vloeberghs and Bellens
(1996), the benefits are categorised into four groups, namely the operational results,
financial results, benefits for the customers and benefits for the workers.
Motwani et al. (1996) has summarised the benefits of ISO 9000 implementation.
These include improvements in operations and methods, increased efficiency of
organisation, employee’s motivation and encouragement. Berghe (1997) discussed some
benefits of ISO 9000 standards in educational institutions such as increase in consistency
of operations, increase in faculty training and development, more awareness regarding
roles and responsibilities, a good promotional tool, future customers (students) likely
demand. Nair and Gonzales (2004) used focus group methods to investigate ISO 9000
implementation at nine career and technical centres in Pennsylvania. The findings
indicated the strengths of ISO 9000 in vocational institutes such as improving the
institutional leadership, improving efficiency, less time consumption to assess the
documents and increased involvement of people. Some studies (Lipovatze et al., 1999;
Taylor, 1995; Huarng et al., 1999) indicated that organisations are driven by some
 Effectiveness of ISO 9000 standards 407

external forces such as customer pressure, perception of organisation, and related factors
to obtain ISO registration. The quality system provides a clearer articulation of the rights
and responsibilities of students, faculty and staff (Doherty, 1995).

2.3 Difficulties in ISO 9000 implementation

There are number of difficulties in the path to ISO 9000 certification. Doherty (1995)
identified the amount of time and effort of faculty and staff required for such activity is a
major problem. Faculty and staff feel more obligations and more time consumed in such
activities. Calingo et al. (1995) indicated that employee resistance to change and lack of
employees’ commitments are the major hurdles in ISO implementation process. The main
difficulties in ISO 9000 implementation are constraints on resources that are time,
manpower and finance (Quazi and Padibju, 1998). Berghe (1997) conducted a survey and
pointed out that the high cost of implementation, volumes of paperwork were seen as the
major problems related to ISO 9000. He expressed that time spent checking paper work is
a major obligation felt by employees. The high costs of implementation, shrinking
university budget and lack of finance support by the government are main difficulties
mentioned by the respondents. Bevans-Gonzales et al. (2004) recognised the problems by
the focus group conducted at the centres are lack of understanding ISO 9000 standards,
paper intensive and more time consumption, high project costs and resistance by
employees due to more responsibilities.
Since last five years many educational institutions in India are adopting ISO 9000
standard as a mean to improve the quality of processes and the educational system. This
paper presents the study conducted to identify the motives behind seeking the
certification. It also reveals the benefits to the system, faculty and students after
implementing ISO 9000 standards.

3 Methodology

This study is purely a survey to find out the effectiveness of ISO 9000 standards in Indian
educational institutions. A survey has been carried out to see how Indian institutions
understand the concept of ISO 9000 standards. The survey examined the issues
concerning motives behind certification in educational institutions, benefits to the system,
faculty and students and problems faced during implementation. Based on literature
survey, a questionnaire was developed which consists of mainly three parts.
1 First section of questionnaire was related to the general information about the
organisation such as type of educational institution, time taken to implement ISO
9000, number of employees in the organisation, etc.
2 Second section was designed to know the motives that lead Indian educational
institutions to get ISO 9000 certification.
3 Last section had questions to know the benefits acquired by institutions and
problems faced during implementation. These benefits are further classified as
benefits to system, faculty and students.
Experts in this field were consulted to modify the questionnaire as per their suggestion
and validate the content of questionnaire. A five point Likert scale (from 1 = poor and
408 C. Singh and K. Sareen

5 = excellence) was chosen for all questionnaire items. Educational institutions were
randomly selected from the list provided by the AICTE, Technical education board and
Indian Medical Association (IMA). The questionnaire was sent to seventy five (75) ISO
9000 certified institutions during the month of March 2005. Some of the educational
institutions were contacted personally to increase the response rate. The certified
institutions were asked to evaluate their performance on the basis of these elements. The
questionnaire was filled up by the Management Representative (MR) of quality
management system from every institute. Management representative was chosen as
respondent because he has ultimate responsibility for effective implementation of quality
management systems. Management representative is a senior faculty member in every
organisation and is well aware about the benefits of implementation and problems faced
during implementation process. By June 2005, 21 valid responses were received, thus a
response rate of 28% with all possible efforts. It is considered to be adequate for this kind
of survey. Respondent institutions are classified as Engineering institutions (16),
Management institutions (2), Polytechnic colleges (2) and Medical institute (1).
The response percentage of these institutions is shown in Figure 1. The response
among the medical institutes was very poor and alarming. Some medical institutions were
approached to find out the reasons behind this poor response. It was surprising to know
that even doctors were not aware about the ISO 9000 certification. It was found that 81%
of the educational institutions are taking 6–12 months to implement ISO standards in
their institutions. There are only 4.7% institutions taking more than 18 months to
implement these standards. All the institutions are getting services from external body by
hiring an external consultant. Even the engineering colleges are also taking the help from
consultants. It shows a big contribution and role of external consultants. It is an
encouraging factor for consulting firms and consultants. Majority of the respondent
institutions (52.4%) are having 100–150 number of employees. But there is not even a
single respondent having more than 150 employees. The general characteristics of the
respondents are shown in Table 1.

Figure 1 Different categories of the respondents

 Effectiveness of ISO 9000 standards 409

Table 1 General characteristics of the respondents

S. No. Characteristics Frequency Percent (%)

1 Time taken for implementation of ISO 9000
x Less than 6 months 03 14.3
x 6–12 months 17 81.0
x 12–18 months 01 4.7
x More than 18 months 0 0
2 Number of staff members
x Less than 50 02 9.5
x 50–100 08 38.1
x 100–150 11 52.4
x More than 150 0 0
3 Hired a service of consultant
x Yes 21 100
x No 0 0

4 Results and discussion

In order to analyse the effectiveness of ISO 9000 contribution educational institutions, a

thorough examination of the motives that lead the organisations to apply for the ISO
9000, benefits of ISO 9000 standards to educational institutions were carried out. The
survey also attempted to determine where the companies experienced difficulties in
implementing ISO 9000 standards. Statistical analysis was carried out to find out the
significance and correlation of different parameters.

4.1 Motives of implementing ISO 9000 standards in institutions

The main motives that lead educational institutions to implement ISO 9000 are extracted
from literature review. The institutes were asked to rate the different motives on the basis
of extent of influence on their decision to get ISO 9000 certification. They were asked to
indicate it on a five point Likert scale. The survey reveals that the most important motive
of the institutions is the documentation of the system of the institution. A high mean
score of documentation should not be surprising because documentation is the core
process of ISO 9001:2000 standards. The high scores for better documentation have also
been acknowledged by Quazi and Padibjo (1998), Lipovatz et al. (1999) and Yahya and
Goh (2001). The documentation streamlines the working of institutions. Documentation
helps the faculty, students and staff to define clear roles and responsibilities. The second
important motive considered is to get accreditation from National Board of accreditation.
So institutions are considering ISO 9000 as a initiative to get this esteemed status. Third
factor identified from findings is market advantage over the other institutions. The least
important motive considered is Industry Institute Interaction that means ISO certification
is not playing an important role to improve the relationship between institution and
410 C. Singh and K. Sareen

industry. The correlation coefficient indicates that overall improvement of system has
positive correlation with all other variables. It means every variable contribute towards
the overall improvement of educational system. Intensity of Influence of each motive and
their correlation is shown in Table 2.
Table 2 Motives of educational institutions to get ISO 9000 certification

Motive of Implementation Mean S.D* DMR ACC MA OIS CP

Documentation and Maintenance of
4.19 0.680
Records (DMR)
Getting accreditation from top
3.95 0.740 0.417**
educational bodies (ACC)
Market Advantage (MA) 3.71 0.956 0.374** 0.121
Overall Improvement of System (OIS) 3.62 0.865 0.385** 0.283 0.285
Competitive Pressure (CP) 3.57 0.978 0.355 0.316 0.031 0.507**
Industry–Institute Interaction (III) 3.10 1.044 0.325 0.200 0.072 0.651** 0.580**

* Standard Deviation; **Correlation is significant at 90% confidence interval.

4.2 Benefits of implementing ISO 9000 in educational institutions

The respondents were asked to rate the benefits that ISO 9000 had brought to their
Institutions after implementation. The survey evaluated the internal and external benefits
that educational institutions achieved from ISO 9000 certification. Internal benefits are
benefits to system, benefits to faculty and benefits to students. A list of possible benefits
was extracted from a thorough literature review on ISO 9000 benefits to certified
organisations. The respondents were asked to rate on a Likert scale of 1–5, where
1 = very less benefit from ISO 9000 implementation and 5 = excellent benefits from ISO
9000 implementation.

4.2.1 Benefit to the system

The system refers to the overall working of the institution. It means how the overall
working of the institutions improved with ISO 9000 implementation. The Table 3
summarises the different benefits to the system. The Table 3 summarises the benefits to
the system. The area, which experienced the greatest benefits, is maintenance of records.
Institutions maintain the records as an evidence of activities performed and results
achieved. The institutions decided to keep the forms, formats and registers etc. to
maintain all kind of records. The documentation also improves understanding among the
faculty and staff, and can be used to train newly hired staff. The second important benefit
to the system is that employees are clear about their roles and responsibilities. Third
benefit is improvement in education imparting techniques with average score of 3.81.
Results also indicate that Indian institutions are lesser benefited in improvement in work
efficiency of the institutions. It is really surprising that by keeping good records,
organisations are not able to improve the efficiency.
 Effectiveness of ISO 9000 standards 411

Table 3 Benefits to the system after implementing ISO 9000

Benefits to System Mean SD t-value Significance

Improvement in maintenance of records 4.14 0.727 7.204* 0.000
Clarification of roles and responsibilities of
3.90 0.700 5.920* 0.000
employees
Education imparting techniques 3.81 0.750 4.949* 0.000
Easy accessibility and traceability of documents 3.76 0.889 3.927* 0.001
Helps to define objectives and goals 3.62 0.856 3.281* 0.004
Improvement in work efficiency of institutions 3.29 0.784 1.671 0.110

*significant at 99% confidence interval.

4.2.2 Benefits to faculty

Faculty is a core member of ant educational institution. The quality of education is highly
dependent on the faculty. The contribution of ISO 9000 standards towards faculty
members cannot be overlooked. Table 4 shows the benefits achieved by the faculty after
implementing ISO 9000 in an institution. The most encouraging benefit is improvement
in lecture planning and delivery. Now most of the faculty members are making plans of
their lectures and check how much they are able to deliver as per the schedule. The next
benefit is availability of infrastructure in their offices and labs etc. Some teachers pointed
out that ISO 9000 helped to provide them resources and they are now having computer,
telephone, internet etc. in their offices. Results also indicate that faculty members are
lesser benefited in terms of motivation and encouragement.
Table 4 Benefits to faculty after implementing ISO 9000

Benefits to faculty Mean SD t-value Significance

Lecture planning and delivery 4.05 0.805 5.966* 0.000
*
Availability of improved infrastructure 3.71 1.056 3.101 0.006
Faculty training and development 3.62 1.024 2.772** 0.012
**
Improvement through feedback from students 3.48 1.078 2.225 0.038
Motivation and encouragement 3.29 0.902 1.451 0.162

*Significant at 99% confidence interval.

**Significant at 95% confidence interval.

4.2.3 Benefits to students

Sahney et al. (2004) said that students are the customers of educational institutions and
their satisfaction is the prime objective. Student satisfaction is defined in terms of course
quality, instruction and peer collaboration and with support services (Zhao, 2003). ISO
9000 standards made significant contribution to satisfy the students. Students are getting
benefits in terms of facilities. They are now getting more facilities than before ISO 9000
implementation. Other benefits are control in non-conforming activities and introduction
of suggestion schemes. Some of the institutions are giving extra efforts to improve the
pass percentage of the students. Results also indicate that students are lesser benefited in
412 C. Singh and K. Sareen

terms of industrial visits during there study period. Table 5 shows the mean score of each
benefit obtained by students after implementing ISO 9000
It is concluded that all mean values of internal benefits are higher than three,
suggesting that implementation of ISO 9000 standards leads to the beneficial outcomes.
The mean score of all the internal benefits is 3.625. The top five internal benefits
perceived by respondents are as follows:
1 improvement in maintenance of records
2 better and scheduled Lecture planning and delivery
3 clarification of Roles and responsibilities of employees
4 better education imparting techniques
5 improvement in facilities to students.
Table 5 Benefits to students after implementing ISO 9000

Benefits to students Mean SD t-value Significance

*
Improvement in facilities to students 3.81 0.928 3.996 0.001

Control in non conforming activities 3.52 0.750 3.202* 0.004

Suggestion schemes to solve the students 3.48 0.981 0.645 0.526
problems
More industrial visits 3.38 0.973 1.793** 0.088

*Significant at 99% confidence interval.

**Significant at 90% confidence interval.

4.2.4 External benefits

Survey results indicated that Indian educational institutions considered improved
perception about organisation and better quality of intake students as more important
external benefit. But they are not capable of generating funds from external bodies such
as accreditation boards, Ministry of human resource and industries, etc. with ISO
certification.

4.3 Problems faced during ISO 9000 certification

From the literature review, some problems were listed and Institutions were asked to rank
the problems faced by them during certification. The respondents were asked to indicate
the perceived level of problem in implementing ISO 9000 using the scale of 5–1
(5 = very big problem, 1 = very small problem). The findings of the problems are
documented in Figure 2. The mean scores of all the problems are compared and one with
highest score is a major problem. The results revealed that Indian institutions are most
bothered by scarcity of time, commitment and lack of obligations (ranked first and
second). They feel that ISO standards are time consuming and paper intensive. Some feel
that ISO standards require more meeting and documentation. Most of the faculty
members were frustrated at the time spent away from classrooms commenting, ‘more
paperwork, less class time’ and felt like they already had full workloads. The overall
mean score ranges from 1.9 to 2.29, which indicate that Indian educational institutions
 Effectiveness of ISO 9000 standards 413

find fewer difficulties in getting ISO certification. This is because of the fact that all
institutions are hiring consultant to get ISO certificate.

Figure 2 Problems faced during ISO 9000 certification

5 Conclusion

The ISO 9000 standards have tended to be successful in the manufacturing and service
industries, but their application to education is relatively new. The current literature
available about ISO 9000 in education shows that there are positive and negative aspects
to implementing the standards in education institutions. This study obtained data from
twenty-one Indian educational institutions and identified motives for certification,
benefits of certifications and problems faced during implementation of ISO 9000. Few
points are concluded from the study. First, most of the institutions hire services of
external consultants and takes less than one year for certification. It shows that role of
external consultant is very important. It is an encouraging factor for consulting firms and
consultants. Second, the main motive of implementing ISO 9000 standard in Indian
educational institutions is improved documentation and better maintenance of records.
Third, it is proved that ISO 9000 is highly beneficial to system, faculty and students. It
improves the maintenance of records and defined the clear role and responsibilities of
each and every one involved. Institutions considered improved perception about their
organisation and better quality of intake students. Fourth, they are facing very few
problems during ISO 9000 implementation and extent of problems is very low. Major
problem they are facing is scarcity of time and commitment and lack of obligations. The
research findings collected are the valuable beginning to the study of ISO 9000 as a
quality system for educational institutions.
414 C. Singh and K. Sareen

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