Quality in Higher Education: The Case of National Economics University

Abstract

Continuous quality improvement of service is a crucial factor for the existence and development of educational institutions. Clarifying and judging the importance of the service’s quality factors are essential elements of quality improvement. The quality of the training services provided by universities in Vietnam have been examined by numerous pieces of research. They focused on a group of subjects, a branch of the university, a major, and assessment of student satisfaction with the use of a toolkit introduced by the MoET or by a school of the university. From these foundations, the purpose of this research is to identify the quality factors of the training service provided by the National Economics University (NEU) as a whole. Education quality is a complex concept and cannot easily be assessed by only one indicator. However, because of the timeframe and the lack of finance, we examined the service quality of NEU from the student perspective by assessing their satisfaction using the SERVQUAL model. The data collection was done by through an online survey. The empirical analysis resulted in 5 factors influencing the quality of the service, assurance, reliability, responsiveness, empathy, and tangibles. From these factors, three suggestions were made for improving the quality of the service: adjusting course structures; retraining communication skills for office staff; upgrading Wi-Fi/internet connection; optimize physical facilities usage. The research findings also have social significance, as empathy was identified as a quality factor. At the same time, the practical implications proposed for NEU’s governors have equal value for state-owned universities in general.