EXPLORING QUALITY OF SERVICE AND ITS CHALLENGES AT THE MOE PORT OF SPAIN OFFICE

Abstract

In Trinidad and Tobago (T&T), teachers often complain about the quality of service offered by the Ministry of Education (MOE). They generally describe it as poor because of the delays incurred during the processing of most requests. Poor service to customers (teachers) of an organisation implies a productivity deficiency. At MOE, requests made by teachers can turn into long waiting for the process to be completed or issues to be resolved. This has become a burden to teachers who are left to suffer the consequences as it appears little is being done to improve the system. To investigate the challenges associated with productivity issues and quality management (QM) practices at the MOE Port of Spain (POS) Office, a recent study was undertaken comprising of site visits and interviews with stakeholders (MOE staff and teachers) with the aid of online surveys. This paper presents the main findings of the survey, aiming to explore issues concerning QM processes, and identify the factors affecting the provision of quality services to teachers. The current quality culture and leadership styles of the MOE-POS Office would be addressed. The paper concludes by underlining the mechanisms of employee empowerment enabling a path to attain productivity/quality improvement, specifically for processing common requests or resolving issues at the MOE-POS Office.