ASQ InfVoices – Educating a Quality Workforce

The topic of ASQ Influence Voices in May was written by Julia McIntosh of ASQ’s communications department entitled "Educating a Quality Workforce". This article quoted Michelle Rhee presentation in WCQI that she told about the poor quality of education in many US public schools; and low-quality education results in a low-quality workforce. Then Julia asked three questions for our rethinking.

(Photo taken in Hong Kong Student Science Project Competition 2014) 

1. Do you see a correlation between the quality of education in your country and the young people entering the workforce?
For secondary school in Hong Kong, famous schools with higher ranking have more resource and provide better quality education included teachers, environment and facilities to support and lead students. The competition causes better students to select those schools. Thus, the better young people enter the workforce after quality education. On the other hand, the lower ranking schools have less resource and selected by mediocrity students that may be affected the quality of education and workforce.
Therefore, many Hong Kong parents very concern their son to win in the starting line.

2. Does your culture celebrate success or is any attempt considered “good enough”?
Hong Kong Government encouraged that “Learning is more important than Scoring (求學不是求分數)”. However, parents think that “Scoring is the most important”. It is because the higher scoring student get, the higher opportunity they study in university. Universities in Hong Kong are very high quality and ranking in the world but number of degrees are not enough for all students. Therefore, we expect to be celebrated for quality, rather than for mediocrity.

3. What is the role of quality in improving public education in any nation?
I would like to quote two professors' comment on higher education below.

Prof. Sung Hyun Park (President, Korean Academy of Science and Technology, and Chair Professor of Department of Management of Technology, Konkuk University) mentioned Malcolm Baldridge Education Criteria (2013-2014) and TQM implementation in Higher Education in which a case study of Sogang University in Korea. Moreover, Prof. Park said quality in university included four outcomes of students that were “Useful”, “Responsive”, “Available” and “Reliability”. (http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2014/05/cityu-spring-research-conference-on.html)

Prof. Ka-Ho Mok (Associate Vice President, Dean & Chair Professor, Faculty of Arts & Sciences, The Hong Kong Institute of Education) explained an education hub had the following characteristics: (http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2010/11/lecture-6.html)
1. Concentration of leading educational institutions
2. High-quality international faculty
3. Large numbers of overseas students
4. Cutting-edge frontline research
5. Excellent infrastructure
6. Substantial revenues from student fees and other sources
7. Able to contribute to society’s business environment

Eventhough the above concepts employed in higher education, we could also employ it into lower level / entry level education (e.g. primary and secondary schools) to enhance the quality of education. Many extra supporting activities such as Student Science Project Competition and InnoCarnival lead by government or non-profit making organizations to improve the quality of education.

Reference:
A View from the Q - http://asq.org/blog/
ASQ Influence Voices Article - Encourage younger generation to study Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2012/02/asq-infvoices-encourage-younger.html
Hong Kong Student Science Project Competition 2014 - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2014/05/hong-kong-student-science-project.html
InnoCarnival 2013 - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2013/11/innocarnival-2013.html
InnoCarnival 2012 - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2012/11/innocarnival-2012.html
InnoCarnival 2011 - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.com/2011/11/innocarnival-2011.html
InnoCarnival 2010 - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.com/2010/11/innocarnival-2010.html