A Review of Service Quality at Higher Learning Institutions

Abstract

In light of plenty of challenges and obstacles facing higher learning institutions, that include increasing tuitions fees, funding shrinkages, if not cuts, worries of decreasing numbers of students or preventing them in pursuing their education, and more importantly, accomplishing a sustainable competitive advantage in the marketplace of higher education, universities pay more attention and make all these challenges and obstacles at the top of its agendas. These pressing challenges have called on universities around the world to look for ways through which they can tackle them. Universities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have not also been left behind in the wind of change that seems to have swept through the service sector. Service quality is a model developed under the management field in order to facilitate effective measurement of quality of services provided by any organisation, whether public or private. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to determine which of the five instruments of service quality has the relative superior measuring capability in measuring service quality in Saudi Arabian higher learning institutions. It also attempts to review the various models developed in service quality. The overall literature focuses on service quality at higher learning institutions. The conclusion of this paper shows that although higher learning institutions in Saudi Arabia have already joined in the implementation of service quality using various instruments, they still have not yet made a significant progress in the newly adopted system and there is lack of enough so far on this regard.

Keywords: Service Quality, Higher Learning Institutions.