Abstract
This 12-month change management plan focuses on introducing total quality management approaches to the Ministry of Education in Saudi Arabia to affect the management of education in the country. The ministry is an educational organisation. The stakeholders in the ministry that the plan affects include learners, teachers, and state and federal administrators.
The changes in the plan will affect them differently, but it will all be in the context of total quality management. Although there are changes made under TQM in Saudi Arabia, they have not happened at the organisational level of the Ministry of Education; hence the novelty of this plan.
It also provides a theoretical background and a literature review of the education situation in Saudi Arabia to lend credibility to the change management plan. The plan focuses on persuading the stakeholders by highlighting the importance of the proposed amendment in the identified education organisation.
Description of a Change for Implementing in an Organisation
Proposed change
In the 12-month program, the proposed change is to introduce total quality management principles and tools in the management of Saudi Arabian education institutions taking place under the Ministry of Education. Therefore, the educational organisation chosen for this project is the Ministry of Education. Affiliate organizations and employees will be considered as part of the organization.
Although there are changes made under TQM in Saudi Arabia, they have not happened at the organizational level of the Ministry of Education; hence the novelty of this plan. The change process should cover the entire country.
The change is intended to give students an opportunity to improve their educational performance. It should also lead to sufficient knowledge concerning areas of improvement to ensure that there is a lifelong learning among students and institutions affiliated to Ministry of Education.
12 month timeline of change
The ministry of education in the first month will announce the changes to all affiliate programs under it. It will then come up with a sensitization program that should run to the second month. This will ensure that favourable perception ensues throughout the country.
The intention of the change process is to ensure that educational institutions and all their members who are under the expansive Ministry of Education in Saudi Arabia are also benefitting from professional and strategic management tools.
In the second to fifth month, they should be able to quantify their input and outcomes based on the goals of the educational process and the learning objectives presented by teachers and adopted by learners.
In the third month of implementation, the Ministry of Education will embark on supervising all education programs in Saudi Arabia while other related ministries will provide additional assistance based on the guidelines of the Ministry of Education. The reconciliation of the ministry’s activities and that of private sector institution will take place in the fourth and fifth month.
There are both private and public education institutions at all levels of learning, and they cater for both male and female students (Alruwaili, 2013). International schools that do not offer the local curriculum still have to work within the parameters laid out by the Ministry of Education. Monitoring of progress will happen throughout the fifth to ninth months of the 12-month program.
There are a number of federal and local government initiatives to improve education outcomes, but a countrywide implementation of TQM strategies in education is yet to be implemented; hence the validity of this proposed change and the management plan. The intention here is to present changes that make the education area of the country competitive.
The last three months of the implementation of modern management methods will be an attempt to ensure that education in the country, as the country’s ministry of education manages it, matches the expected global standards. Therefore, the major task will be evaluation of the program and making changes in areas of need. In addition, it will also be a framework allowing stakeholders to have useful criteria for evaluating performance.
In the tenth, eleventh and twelfth month, the Ministry of Education will rely on the financial, quality, growth, or other indicators used to measure the success of the education program (Pardo-del-Val, ´nez-Fuentes, & Roig-Dobo´n, 2012).
After the initial work is done, it should be practical for county education heads and school principals as well as regional education departmental heads to come up with the reform process that address observed and analysed shortcomings in the education.
Therefore, in month eleven and twelve, the TQM tools, which will be in use as part of the management of learning at all levels of the education framework, will highlight any education service-delivery shortcomings for subsequent improvement under ministry programs.
Plan for implementing the change
Implementing action & strategy
The first action step will be to manage the perception of the change process so that other minor changes within the overall program receive sufficient support (Piderit, 2000).
This strategy takes note of the fact that teachers and school administrators have autonomy in some aspects of school management. On the other hand, they are bound by codes of practice and resource dependencies. They have to rely on the stewardship of the ministry of education. The ministry has its leadership and administration levels that will also present different challenges for implementing the change.
To achieve success in the first action step, the plan will use the strategy of addressing the preconceived notions of education management. This may include clearing misconception about the need to implement private company practices in a public service sector like education.
Given the high number of stakeholders, and the experience of the other stakeholders while they were learners will likely affect the reception of the proposed change. Therefore, the next action step will be to modify the proposal to reflect preliminary feedback on what education should be like in Saudi Arabia.
After creating the right perception, the strategy adopted will be to influence the education organisation culture, in this case the ministry of education, to accept and use total quality management. This will involve going back to the history of reforms and other changes in education and using that as the basis for coming up with the additional changes.
The strategic target here is the overall program of education being implemented by the ministry of education in Saudi Arabia. The expectation is that stakeholders will interpret the changes as restricting of education by the ministry. The communication to all stakeholders will be that the ministry is shifting its strategy for managing education in the country to respond to new demands for quality, effectiveness, and efficiency.
An additional action step will be coming up with minimum changes and their indicators for the key issues affecting education program implementation under the ministry. The strategy here will be to consider the administration part of the ministry and the respective implementing organisations under the Ministry such as schools and regulatory bodies in different states.
The indicators and minimum goals will cover technology, culture, structure, employees, jobs and learners. Their attainment will be a testament of the progress being made in changing education in the country based on this plan.
Beyond the internal goals, the additional intervention or action for change will be to address emergent change factors in the internal and external environment that govern the operations of the ministry and its affiliate institutions. Thus, the strategy will include use of laws, the economy, politics, technical development, specifications and opportunities, as well as competition faced by learners, teachers and their institutions.
A final action step will be the use of pilot projects as a strategy done in particular institutions and involving several individuals identified as key influences in their respective capacities.
Explanation of the Theory that Underpins the Approach to Change Management as a Whole
Education organisations continually face changes in their operating environments and are influenced by internal and external factors. They have to address changes in competition, technological changes and systematic changes in how they deliver education service to learners.
They must also respond to funding changes by their sponsor entities. Dealing with these changes in an intentional and strategic manner is what change management is all about.
An understanding of change management in education organisation comes from the Bridge’s theory of managing the transition (Hallinger & Bridges, 2007). The theory recognises transition as the psychological process that people will follow when they are coming to terms with a new situation. Transition is essential for change to work, and it occurs between the time of letting go and embracing new ways or ideas.
The theory calls on managers to focus on the transition more than the change itself because without proper handling of the transition, the change intended will not be realised. The beginnings of change are psychological and require management of expectations and emotions (Hallinger & Bridges, 2007). There should be the use of persuasion rather than command. Transitions provide room for creativity, renewal and innovation.
They also require the organisation to let off their old identity. The theory presents four P’s for launching a new beginning, and they are the purpose, picture, plan and part. The P’s present the logic behind the change, a presentation of the look and feel of an outcome, the way to get the outcome and the part that everyone will play.
In the end, an education organisation has to reinforce the new beginning by being consistent and ensuring quick successes. This should improve the self-confidence of the stakeholders. The organisation should also celebrate the success of the transition (Findlow, 2012).
Another relevant theory to explain change management is Kotter’s theory of managing change. This theory calls for the establishment of a sense of urgency in the change process as a way to combat complacency. The next step is to establish people with the right character spearhead a guiding coalition that will ensure change management. Beyond that, there is a need for vision and strategy for change (Kezar, 2014).
The vision should be communicated early. Communication should frequently happen in a way that is understandable to everyone (Hazle Bussey, Welch, & Mohammed, 2014). After that, the process moves to action. Here employees receive empowerment to follow a vision, to align systems and to get rid of obstacles to the intended change.
As the organisation members follow the vision and act, they will generate short-term wins. Overall, the change process should be done in a way that ensures the short-term wins are many.
Consolidation should not lead to reduced change. Finally, the new approaches would be anchored in the culture of the organisation as a new way of doing things. When the changes become part of the culture, existing, and new members of the organisation will face less resistance for implementing new procedures (Cutcher, 2009).
The above theories explain that focusing on the bigger picture is important throughout the transition or the organisational change process. Besides, communication should always be there. This will ensure that all stakeholders can highlight the challenges they face and understand the actions of other stakeholders. With early involvement, the transition process is easier to deal with.
The information obtained regarding the change process also increases significantly with early involvement (Dionne, Yammarino, Atwater, & Spangler, 2004). Overall, smaller change management steps that are successful are important for influencing attitude and commitment to the overall change process.
Explanation and Justification of Choice
TQM began as a strategy for business to compete globally against the domination of Japanese firms that seemed to have a better philosophy and approach to business management (Adde-Korankye, 2013). Many studies on firms implementing the TQM philosophy support the claim of its positive influence in a firm’s financial, stakeholder and environmental bottom lines (Beer, 2003).
Past implementations of TQM mainly relied on leadership as an overall philosophy. Based on this understanding, there is increasing support for the idea that TQM would also be useful for public institutions.
Although they may not exist in a competitive environment, they still face the same stakeholder demands that private organisations face such as being efficient with their use of resources, delivering the required changes to society to enhance sustainability, and avoiding exploitative and unethical practices (Huang, Lee, & Hsiao, 2008).
In the academic sector, TQM is instrumental in promoting a universal quality criterion that would be useful for evaluating the performance of educational organisations. The leadership of educational organisations affects their responsiveness, integrity, courage and passion (Ferdig, 2007).
Given that their capacity to change is dependent on management of many stakeholder interests, the implantation of TQM in an education organisation takes a modified approach compared to that of typical business organisations (Kaur, Kanwarpeet, & Ahuja, 2013).
The move towards TQM in Saudi Arabia education comes from recommendations by the Saudi Development Plan, which calls for accountability in education. It seeks to ensure that the delivery of education in the country happens in a reducing cost and rapidly achieves increased levels of quality (Alruwaili, 2013).
The overall goal is to make sure Saudi Arabia can tap into a global scientific development and successive technical advances in a way that can benefit its people.
Thus, the public sector is a product provider that would face the same needs of quality measurement and management as a private manufacturing company (Jabnoun & Sedrani, 2005). With this approach, citizens who are beneficiaries of public services receive treatment as customers (Kaur, Kanwarpeet, & Ahuja, 2013).
Scholars also point out that the move to consider citizens as customers who expect services as fewer costs and high quality does not mean that social contracts are no longer viable. Instead, the move only increases the efficiency of social contract delivery by introducing free market principles to improve efficiency and accountability (Saiti, 2012).
This understanding helps to highlight the shortcomings of education in Saudi Arabia (Moosa, Sajid, Khan, & Mughal, 2010; Prajogo & Sohal, 2006).
Also, research shows that TQM application can happen systematically to yield the greatest benefit to the implementing organisation (Srima & Wannapiroon, 2013). Such literature calls for planning to ensure that essential dimension of service activities are secured.
At the same time, going for a continuous approach instead of a one-step implementation will yield sustainable positive result for any human organisation that is currently pursuing short-term and long-term strategy.
This finding applies well to the ministry of education and the education program in Saudi Arabia. It also lends support to the use of the plan presented earlier to introduce systematic TQM to all ministries of education official activities (Alruwaili, 2013).
Conclusion
Change management requires the right approach and adaptation of relevant theories to a particular organisation’s situation. In education organisation, stakeholder engagement and considerations for external factors affecting change are important. The change management plan presented in this paper reflects an intended introduction of total quality management in education in Saudi Arabia.
The proposed change identifies the ministry of education as the spearheading organisation. Therefore, all considerations of change management in education organisation cover the ministry of education.
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