Enhancing Quality Service Delivery through Self Evaluation: A Case of the Zimbabwe Open University’s Matabeleland South Region

Abstract

KEYWORDS Accountability. Customer Satisfaction. Customer Delight. Continuous Improvement. Customer Service Delivery. Quality Assurance ABSTRACT The study sought to establish the extent to which self evaluation, using students who are the direct clients of the education system, promoted the quality of service delivery in Zimbabwe Open University's Matabeleland South Region. The mixed methods design was used to collect data from students in two phases. The first phase collected quantitative data using questionnaires from 77 students who were writing the November/December 2011 examinations. The second phase collected qualitative data using interviews with five students from each faculty. In the main, the study revealed that self evaluation helped the region improve the quality of service delivery. The study also revealed that the Matabeleland South region needed to improve the quality of the tutorials offered to the students, increase the tutorial time allocation, improve the turnaround time for the marked assignments, encourage the use of power point presentation by tutors, provide internet facilities for research and make use of e-mail services when communicating with students. Students were unhappy with lack of periodicals, local newspapers, magazines and journals at the library. The quality of the province's administrative services was acceptable while the conduct and management of examinations was singled out as professional and beyond reproach. The study recommended periodic self evaluation as a means of enhancing continuous improvement of the quality of service delivery in Zimbabwe Open University's Matabeleland South Region in particular and the entire institution in general.