The dictates of the quality movement form the rubric for the conduct of many processes within vocational education and training (VET): teaching, assessment, reporting, recording, research, customer service, auditing, financial management, business and industry partnerships, and so on. Traditional concepts of industrial quality were founded in post-war manufacturing contexts, and premised on products and processes being observable and measurable. The assessment, control and assurance of quality were regarded as (and are still widely believed to be) empirically verifiable. Total Quality Manageme
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The dictates of the quality movement form the rubric for the conduct of many processes within vocational education and training (VET): teaching, assessment, reporting, recording, research, customer service, auditing, financial management, business and industry partnerships, and so on. Traditional concepts of industrial quality were founded in post-war manufacturing contexts, and premised on products and processes being observable and measurable. The assessment, control and assurance of quality were regarded as (and are still widely believed to be) empirically verifiable. Total Quality Management (TQM) is an outgrowth of such positivist philosophies, as is the entire ISO 9000 system of certification. Although the verification of standards and procedures that these systems promise served certain needs of the old economy, how have they managed to retain their place in the new economy? This paper will argue that the concept of `quality' as a central plank in the Protestant project of unending self-improvement has been transformed and re-vitalised in the new economy which is service-oriented, globally-focused and infinitely flexible, in which students/workers must continually re-invent themselves in response to shifting workplace demands and/or personal imperatives. It is, therefore, timely to problematise the ideology of quality and to examine its rhetoric. This paper will focus on that rhetoric as it is employed in several VET-related contexts.
Excerpts from printed abstract used with the permission of the copyright holder.
Volume one of these proceedings is indexed at TD/TNC 68.31, volume two is indexed at TD/TNC 68.32 and individual papers may be found from TD/TNC 68.17 to TD/TNC 68.29 and from TD/TNC 68.33 to TD/TNC 68.100
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