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LIFELONG LEARNING
FOR THE QUALITY SOCIETY
WITH SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Yu. Anttila
A society may be a local, nation- or country-wide, regional, or global entirety, or an issue-specific group of people. Members of this community are independent but interactive actors; they have distinct identities and development status, and consist of citizens, visitors, institutions, private companies, and organizations of public civil service and not-for-profit third sector (Fig. 1). An organization is a group of people that has functions with responsibilities, authorities and relationships to achieve its objectives 1. People have the central role in all societies. People
institute the society, and individuals are influenced and developed by the instituted
2
society 2 3.
Figure 1. A society with its different independent members has its distinguishable characteristics and distinctive development
Societies are scale-free networks . Strong network actors (hubs) keep the network alive, and quality of the network facilitates its growth. Individual actors or groups may, according their own decisions, sporadically liberate themselves from the network or join with the network. Development of the society is managed by nobody. This also applies to education and learning, and quality in the society. However, the societal development is not random, but influenced by strong society members or external bodies having a powerful position or effective communication.
1 ISO, ISO 9000, 9001 and 9004 standards, Quality management systems, ISO, Geneva, Switzerland (2005/8/9)
2 C. Castoriadis, Pouvoir, la politique, l'autonomie (1978) (The Finnish translation in Magma, Karisto 1997)
3 A. Barabasi, Linked: How everything is connected to everything else and what it means for business, science, and everyday life. Plume Books. New York (2003)
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Recent researchers also bring forward emergency and teleology as explanations for the long term development of all our existence.
Societies compete with quality. The target of the quality of society, “Quality society”, is a society with high quality, a good society, or a well-functioning and well-developing society, the society which is good for all its interested parties 1 2 3 inside and outside the society.
Professional quality concepts provide the solid foundation for the consistent understanding, implementation and evaluation of practical societal and educational realizations and solutions with high quality. Internationally standardized 3 quality concepts and principles are well established and practiced in the most countries, and used in millions of different organizations, though they are not well known within education experts. Also quality of society is a new domain in the professional quality considerations. Traditionally the quality profession has focused on the quality of products and organizations. It is highly recommended to use the standardized quality concepts also in the field of education and learning and in the context of society.
The concepts, quality and quality management, form the basis for the professional quality approach. Quality of an object is defined as the degree to which the object fulfills the needs and expectations of all interested parties 4, 5. In the case of education, the object consists of all outcomes co-created by the teaching processes (education provider) and learning processes (learner) 6 7. Education providers have many different interested parties, but the teacher and student are the most important ones. Quality of education aims at satisfaction of both the learner and the teacher. Quality is a person’s subjective and holistic perception. In the case of society, the object is the society at large, and the needs and expectations are from the different interested parties of the society, which consists of all individuals of the society directly or indirectly via different organizations and also significant parties outside the society.
Quality management implies coordinated activities to manage the organization with regard to quality 7. This definition is for organizations, e.g. education providers, and indicates that quality originates in the organization's management. This definition is not suitable for societies, because they are not any organizations, or manageable systems, but societal networks of independent and interlinked actors. A society is managed by nobody 8.
1 T Nagel, Mind and cosmos, Oxford University Press, New York, 2012.
2 J. Anttila and K. Jussila, Societal quality and the competitiveness, The 16th International Symposium on Quality, Opatija, Croatia, 2015.
3 ISO, ISO 9000, 9001 and 9004 standards, Quality management systems, ISO, Geneva, Switzerland (2005/8/9).
4 ibid.
5 J. Anttila, Ensuring the quality of learning through effective and efficient educational processes, The 12th International Conference, Lifelong learning: Continuous education for sustainable development, Saint-Petersburg, Russia, 2014.
6 J. Anttila, Quality diffusion in societies through high quality lifelong learning, The 12th International conference Lifelong learning: Continuous education for sustainable development, the 2nd stage, Astana, Kazakhstan, 2014.
7 ISO, ISO 9000, 9001 and 9004 standards, Quality management systems, ISO, Geneva, Switzerland (2005/8/9).
8 J. Anttila and K. Jussila, Societal quality and the competitiveness, The 16th International
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Quality improvement, which is a key element of the professional quality management, is defined as increasing the ability to fulfill needs and expectations of the interested parties 1. Quality of a societal network is based on multiple win/win principle 1 2, and quality improvement means mutual learning of people, organizations, and the society at large. Societies and their quality develop through its members’ learning and collaboration, in particular, through learning people directly or indirectly via different organizations. We call this quality diffusion. Learning individual, learning organization, and learning society are very different learning domains (Table 1). Continual long term quality improvement is based on the lifelong learning of people.
Table 1
Three different learning domains for the well-functioning society, the “Quality society”. Individual people have the central role in all these areas
An Individual An organization A society
Entity: A rationally, non-rationally and irrationally behaving human being with paradoxical existential freedom and tied to the surrounding environment and other individuals Entity: A systemic group of people with functions, responsibilities, authorities and relationships to achieve the organizational objectives with its interested parties Entity: A more or less ordered aggregate of independent people and organizations interacting with its own members and external parties as a nonsystemic network
Quality: Faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love (1 Cor 13:13); A good life Quality: Fulfilling all interested parties' needs and expectations; Sustained successful business of the organization Quality: “Quality society”; Wellfunctioning and well-developing community for all its members; Competitive with other societies
Quality management: Love your neighbor as yourself. (Mat 22:39) Quality management: Management of the organization with regard to quality Quality management: Quality management within the individual societal actors (Societal quality diffusion)
Responsibility: The person him/herself (or the guardian) Responsibility: Top management of the organization Responsibility: Nobody or everybody
Learning: A learning individual (A knowledge transformation) Learning: A learning organization (Organizational regeneration) Learning: A learning society (Diffusion: evolution/revolution)
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Societal quality consists of many various characteristic dimensions according to the following general systematic categories 3: (a) variety of the community services and their effectiveness and integrity 4; (b) Human factors and ergonomics; (c) serviceability 5 (i.e. service accessibility and service retainability), including capability and availability; (d) security with regard to property, belongings,
Symposium on Quality, Opatija, Croatia, 2015.
1 ISO, ISO 9000, 9001 and 9004 standards, Quality management systems, ISO, Geneva, Switzerland (2005/8/9)
2 J. Anttila, Integrated quality approach in business networks, The 54th EOQ Congress, Izmir Turkey, 2010.
3 J. Anttila and K. Jussila, Societal quality and the competitiveness, The 16th International Symposium on Quality, Opatija, Croatia, 2015.
4 International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 1990, Electropedia: The World's Online Electrotechnical Vocabulary, http://www.electropedia.org/iev/iev.nsf/index?openform&part=191
5 ibid.
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privacy and life, societal stability, and regional defense; (e) human rights , freedom and equality; (f) esthetics; (g) ethical performance; (h) social performance, including connectivity, interactivity and sharing, innovativeness, and incorruptibility; (j) ecology and sustainability * 2 3; (k) economy and efficiency and cost of poor quality .
People perceive these factors of the societal performance holistically and subjectively according their personal situation, circumstances, and cultural base. All high quality learning has positive influence on the quality development of the societies, and all above listed topic areas are significant learning themes for improving the quality of society.
Persons’ lifelong learning takes place during his/her entire existence 4 as an individual and as a member of organizations and societies through formal and informal educational and societal processes of gaining or acquiring knowledge or skills. Our societies have a great variety of possibilities for the education and learning for individuals through their lifetime: (a) general education from kindergartens and primary schools to universities: Preparing for becoming and growing as a member of society and the citizenship, and contributing to the working life in the society and the world; (b) training and education of young people in vocational schools (preparing for an occupation and profession for the needs and expectations of the society and its organizations, and person’s career development); (c) training and education in adult education centers: Getting specialized knowledge and skills for citizenship and wellbeing; (d) training and education by third sector organizations, e.g. sport clubs, youth centers, associations, etc.: (developing skills and attitudes); (e) organizations’ internal education and learning of leaders and employees (preparing for the needs and expectations of the businesses and persons’ career); (f) training and education by educational enterprises and consultants (getting specialized knowledge and skills and networking); (g) self-learning through individual living with family and society members.
Performance measurements and evaluations are traditionally central issues of established quality management 5. Conceptually, the measurement topic is challenging. Metrology 6 is the science of measurement and its application. According to the vocabulary of metrology, measurement means experimentally obtaining one or more quantity values that can reasonably be attributed to a quantity of the item as the object of the measurement. One should make clear in a practical way the meanings and roles of the concepts like fact, data, information, and knowledge, and how they are related to the measurement activity 7. According
United Nations (1948), The universal declaration of human rights,
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml
2 EPA United States Environmental Protection Agency, http://www2.epa.gov/aboutepa (2015)
3 L. Sorqvist, Poor quality costing, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm Sweden, (1998)
4 T. Armstrong, The twelve stages of the human life cycle, http://www.institute4learning.com/stages_of_life.php (2008)
5 J. Anttila and K. Jussila, 'You get what you measure. Or not?' Challenges for fact-based quality management, The International Symposium on Quality in Osijek, Croatia (2011)
6 International Organization of Legal Metrology (OIML): OIML V 2-200, International Vocabulary of Metrology - Basic and General Concepts and Associated Terms (VIM). Geneve (2010) http://www.oiml.org/publications/V/V002-200-e10.pdf
7 J. Anttila and K. Jussila, 'You get what you measure. Or not?' Challenges for fact-based quality
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to Deming information is not knowledge. Knowledge comes from theory. Without theory, there is no way to use information that comes to us on the instant. The profound knowledge is a necessity for managing an organization and its processes.
Different organizations have developed many evaluating models for educational systems and learning results that have been used at different education levels nationally and internationally. From quality point of view these approaches are not consistently compatible and may be confusing. A reason for this situation is the nebulous foundation of quality and metrology in the field of education. The approaches of evaluating and comparing educational activities and their results have however received wide publicity, including:
• UNESCO EFA (Education for all)1 2. GEQAF (General education quality analysis/diagnostic framework): The education system and learning environment; targets, structure and functioning of the education. LLECE (Latin American laboratory for assessment of the quality of education). SACMEQ (The Southern and Eastern Africa consortium for monitoring educational quality)
• OECD PISA (The programme for international student assessment)3: Assessment of the 15-year-old students’ scholastic performance on mathematics, science and reading
• TIMSS (Trends in international mathematics and science study): Assessment of the fourth and eighth grade students’ knowledge in mathematics and science, and PIRLS (Progress in international reading literacy study): Assessment of the 4th grade students’ reading literacy 4 5
• EIU (The Economist intelligence unit) Learning Curve : Analysis of the educational systems in a broad sense
• Baldrige approach (USA) 6: Assessment of the comprehensive performance of educational organizations
• The Bologna process7: Approach to ensure comparability in the standards and quality of higher education qualifications and university quality assurance
• EQAVET: The European quality assurance in vocational education and training 8
management, The International Symposium on Quality in Osijek, Croatia (2011)
1 W.E. Deming, The new economics. MIT. Cambridge MA (1993)
2 UNESCO, General education system quality analysis/diagnosis framework (GEQAF), http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/ED/pdf/GEQAF-_English.pdf (2012)
3 OECD, The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA),
http://www.oecd.org/pisa/aboutpisa/ (2013)
4 Boston College TIMSS & PIRLS International Study Center, http://timssandpirls.bc.edu/#
(2014)
5 The Economist Intelligence Unit,The Learning Curve, http://thelearningcurve.pearson.com
(2014)
6 NIST, Baldrige education criteria for performance excellence, http://www.nist.gov/baldrige/publications/education_criteria.cfm (2013)
7 European Commission, The Bologna process and the European higher education area, http://ec.europa.eu/education/policy/higher-education/bologna-process_en.htm (2014)
8 EQAVET, The European Quality Assurance in vocational education and training, http://www.eqavet.eu/gns/about-eqavet/welcome.aspx (2014)
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• ISO standardization on the education management systems: The ongoing work of the ISO/PC 288 Educational organizations management systems 1 will supersede the previous initiatives of ISO 29990:2010, ISO/IEC CD 36001, and ISO/WD 18420.
• National standardization, e.g. Common Core State Standards Initiative in the USA 2, and NP 4512:2012 - A Portuguese management system standard fostering quality, innovation and technology in vocational education and training 3
• Various international and national assessments, classifications, and quality awards, such as universities, polytechnics, colleges, vocational schools, and educational programs.
When evaluating education and learning one should make clear what is the purpose of the evaluation 4. Quality evaluations should be based on the recognized professional quality concepts and principles. Quality profession also provides a lot of practices for quality evaluations, methodology to consider measurements data, and improvement activities based on their results 5.
Evaluating the quality of the society is a still more challenging and fragmented issue 6. In fact, well-established practices for evaluating societies from the overall quality point of view are not available. However, there are a lot of published information on the society evaluations and comparisons that are very fragmented into many specialized local, regional, and national topics, including aspects of municipality operations, social capital, social fragility and risks, environmental issues, nature, ecology and sustainable development, “green growth”, competitiveness, culture and cultural values, language, wealth, family issues, public participation and human relationships, creativity and innovations, peace, freedom, happiness and quality of life, etc. Northern European countries, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, have regularly been top-ranked in these evaluations and comparisons. For this reason, it has become the habit to talk about the Nordic welfare societies 7. Typically, however, quality or education experts have not much been involved in these cases.
A lot of social development programmes have been carried out in different countries, which also typically emphasize certain aspects of societies and particularly reflecting the interests of the strong society members 8. Often these
ISO/PC 288 Educational organizations management systems, http://www.iso.org/iso/home/standards_development/list_of_iso_technical_committees/iso_technical_co mmittee.htm?commid=4960304 (2014)
2 E. McArdle, What happened to the Common Core? Harvard Graduate School of Education, http://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/ed/14/09/what-happened-common-core (2014)
3 S.D. Feliciano, NP 4512:2012 - A new Portuguese management system standard fostering quality, innovation and technology in vocational education and training, http://papers.efquel.org/index.php/tqm-book/article/view/89/29 (2012)
4 J. Anttila and K. Jussila, 'You get what you measure. Or not?' Challenges for fact-based quality management, The International Symposium on Quality in Osijek, Croatia (2011)
5 ibid.
6 J. Anttila and K. Jussila, Societal quality and the competitiveness, The 16th International Symposium on Quality, Opatija, Croatia, (2015)
7 Eklund, K., Berggren, H. and Tragardh, L. (2010), Shared norms for the new reality, The
Nordic way, World economic forum Davos, http://www.globalutmaning.se/wp-
content/uploads/2011/01/Davos-The-nordic-way-final.pdf
8 J. Anttila and K. Jussila, Societal quality and the competitiveness, The 16th International
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programmes consider difficult societal problems. At the global level the “wicked problems” may relate to the global warming, increasing scarcity of natural resources, aging, urbanization, social polarization, insecurity and disasters. The United Nations is a strong organization in the global society. It has focused on the big world wide quality problems including the multi-disciplinary global Millennium Development Goals 1 that consists of: (a) Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; (b) achieve universal primary education; (c) Promote gender equality and empower women; (d) reduce child mortality; (e) improve maternal health; (f) combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; (g) ensure environmental sustainability; (h) a global partnership for development.
Quality has not been explicitly present in these cases although the UN has the formal cooperation with the International Academy for Quality 2. Particular education activities are not included in the Millennium programme, and e.g links to the UNESCO’s EFA (Education for all) programme or Lifelong learning activities have not been reported.
The European strategy 3 Europe 2020, A European strategy for smart, sustainable, and inclusive growth, is a large development initiative, but it does not explicitly consider the quality of the European society.
In particular nowadays many social development initiatives refer to sustainability. Above mentioned UN’s Millennium goals and EU’s strategy are examples. However, the concept sustainability has a very wide and hence vague definition 4 that in some cases also incorporates or assimilates all of the quality aspects. We are aware of two other examples, the sustainability development in the city of Espoo 5, Finland, and the green innovation programme in Hong Kong 6, which are aligned with the three entity approach of individuals, organizations and the society (Table 1) and emphasize the important role of education and learning. At organizational level, voluntary social responsibility is emphasized today for organizations’ own business benefits. For that we also have the international standard ISO 26000 7. The Nordic countries are scoring particularly highly in the Global Sustainable Competitiveness Index (GSCI) 8. Although quality experts have not been strongly involved with these programmes, we are, however, convinced 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Symposium on Quality, Opatija, Croatia, (2015)
1 United Nations,The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), http://www.un.org/miNenniumgoals/ (2015)
2 The International Academy for Quality, http://iaqweb.org/index.asp (2015)
3 European Union, http://www.euintheus.org/resources-learning/eu-fact-sheets/august-2010-europe-2020-a-european-strategy-for-smart-sustainable-and-inclusive-growth/europe-2020-a-european-strategy-for-smart-sustainable-and-inclusive-growth/ (2010)
4 The World Bank, Sustainable development overview,
http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/sustainabledevelopment/overview#1 (2015)
5 Sustainable Development Espoo (RCE), http://www.espoo.fi/en-
us/housing_and_environment/Environment_and_nature/Sustainable_Development_Espoo_RCE (2014)
6 M. Pavlova, Challenges and opportunities in skills building for innovation: Human resource
dimensions of Hong Kong's green innovation
https://oraas0.ied.edu.hk/rich/web/project_details.jsp?pid=2513760&r=&k= (2014)
7 ISO 26000, Guidance on social responsibility, ISO. Geneve (2010).
8 The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), https://www.globalreporting.org/information/about-gri/what-is-gri/pages/default.aspx (2015)
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that professional quality viewpoints can provide useful additional “flavor” for these cases, too.
Societal performance is considered from many different perspectives and by different expertise. The quality of the society is a new research orientation, and the quality profession confronts with a cross-disciplinary situation. Challenging questions are, what kind of an added value the quality expertise can provide for the interested parties of the societies, and how the quality profession can retain its identity of expertise and effectively collaborate with the other disciplines.
Quality of the society is a challenge for all nations and regions. Recognized quality promoting agents are essential for the successful societal quality development. These agents may be individuals and organizations that have genuine will power, strategic intent, and professional competence for the quality development but that do not necessarily possess strong formal or official authoritative positions. The possibilities of the state departments and governmental bodies to affect on the quality of the society split strongly opinions according to people’s political orientations. Contemporary political tendencies have even worsened the living and operating conditions in our societies, for example, in just a few decades, the neoliberal capitalism has nearly broken the planet earth.
The human aspects are crucial in order to strive for the high and sustainable quality of society. Only with personal engagements individually and in organizations we can achieve successful results. Here we can refer to recognized persons: (1) Dostoyevsky required a ’’qualitative revolution" that starts with the man's own heart, and the transformation of the human person and moral renewal 1; (2) Ilyin, a recognized Russian philosopher, noted that we must prepare ourselves for quality service to our native land; prepare our character, reason, and feelings with a strong-will idea 2;
Actually we have to strive for the quality of people’s lifelong learning. Otherwise the foundation of the welfare principle or welfare economy, the belief that when the basic human needs are met and the adequate education and freedom of self-realization are given a person begins to live a good and dignified life, does not happen in practice. Freedom dismisses the values, and only a few people are capable to independent judgment, healthy and dignified life. Prosperity without civilization and morality is nothing more than a primitive good feeling. When ideologies come to the end, it is only a matter of time when the values finally collapse in the eyes of the thinking people 3. 1 2 3
1 R. Stertenbrink (Ed.), Fedor Dostojevski, Sanat kuin heijastus (Words like a reflection), WSOY
(1988)
2 I. Ilyn, И. Ильин, Спасение в качестве, Журнал Русский колокол, http://mirq.ucoz.ru/publ/18-1-0-53 (1928).
3 J. Ehrnrooth, Hyvinvointiyhteiskunta perustuu valheelle (The welfare society is based on a lie), HeSa 10.1.2015.
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