Student satisfaction LO13515

t.struck (TXS614@novell5.bham.ac.uk)
Wed, 7 May 1997 11:18:33 BST

Replying to LO13480 --

Dear Orglearners
Thomas Benjamin wrote

> At the Institute of Rural Management, Anand(IRMA), India we offer a two
> year postgraduate diploma in Rural Management. Our endeavour is to
> attract, educate and make available trained managers for the Rural
> Development sector. The founders of this institute were responding to a
> percieved national need. The Director and Faculty have been struggling to
> respond.
> My View:
> - --------
> I see the students as being in the production line - in process. The
> customers are really the organisations in the Rural sector in our country.
> Since students come with a variety of expectations, background etc., while
> at the institute, they are our customers and raw material,and later as
> Alumni remain our allies to improve our process methods(teaching-
> learning-methods). As customers, the learning modules, methods, campus
> life etc are key elements that provide for student satisfaction. As raw
> material, they are being prepared into that value added product that our
> target customers require.

Dear Thomas,

I don't know wether or not your students have choosen your school
deliberately but I assume they do. If so, I think to see them as
products is not appropriate.
It's not to long ago that I finished my studies in engineering in Germany.
My opinion naturally refers to my own experiences. As I see it.
The students are your primar customer not just while studying at your
institution. A student invest in his
education guessing,
that when his studies there would be sufficient demand for someone
with his education. A student's motivation might of course be the
sheer lust of learning, a strong desire to understand and so on. But
in subjects like Engineering or probably Rural Management as well, I
doubt it.
As long as a student can choose freely (assuming his qualification,
or a-levels or matura allows it to a certain degree), he probably
will choose the school were he thinks he gets the highest knowledge or
understanding or learns the most in a reasonable time.
That leaves 2 points.
1. Some (all?) subject of higher education need a reasonable
perspective to attract students.
2. Some (all?) schools of higher education need a certain quality of
learning (teaching) to attract students.
The question then is, what do your students have on mind during there
studies, what is their aim. Do they study assuming they will work for
companies, getting possibly high salaries? Or is their aim to work
for producer cooperations, which possibly don't pay that much?

> Right now we are going through much of soul searching. Something appears
> to have gone wrong. Assuming the market (customer) cannot be wrong, our
> process at the institute is inappropriate or our raw material needs
> careful selection. I am in a committee to look into our current problem.
> Our students seem to be much more in demand by the corporate sector than
> the sector we are targetting. At least our primary customers -
> organisations such as producer cooperatives seem to be less enthusiastic
> about our products. Naturally, the Board is unhappy with us, the faculty.
> The students want to go were they seem to be in demand.(The problem is not
> as simple as this paragraph. It only gives an essence of the problem).

I think you should figure out whether your institution and your
students do have the same goal. I think not.
IMO students are not raw material. They cannot be formed as one wants to.

I think you should figure out, what the students' motivation to study at your
school realy is. And you should consider your own objectives. Are
they still appropriate?

All the best

Thomas Struck (Dipl.-Ing.)

The University of Birmingham
School of Manufacturing and Mechanical Engineering
Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT, United Kingdom
Tel.: ++44 121 414 4165
Fax.: ++44 121 414 4239
Email: t.struck@bham.ac.uk
E-Mail.: t.struck@bham.ac.uk

-- 

"t.struck" <TXS614@novell5.bham.ac.uk>

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