Six Sigma for the Education Sector

With the school holidays almost at an end and pupils, parents and teachers alike beginning to gear up for the new year, our blog post this week takes a look at the feasibility of applying the Six Sigma methodology to the Education Sector.

While the education sector is by far one of the most important, diverse and potential-filled, it also tends to be one of the most inconsistent and troubled. There is no other sector in which it is more important to facilitate, measure and prove consistently excellent output across the board, yet doing so by conventional methods often proves impossible. It could, therefore, be time for the conventional to be redefined with the implementation of the Six Sigma training methodology, which contrary to long-standing belief is in fact ideally suited to the education sector.

Many of the world’s biggest brands and companies already at the top of their game found themselves hitting new highs after implementing the Six Sigma philosophy. Generally associated with project management in a variety of industry sectors, the Six Sigma approach to doing business and carrying out a task is one of identifying where any problems exist, isolating their causes and summarily implementing a structured and full mapped-out solution with optimum performance in mind. It has the potential to dig deep into the very core of all areas of business in any sector in order to improve overall operations by making the very best of all available assets, resources and manpower.

The recent adoption of Six Sigma by a number of the world’s leading service industry players illustrates the potential for the methodology in the education sector. The reason being the number of similarities between the two – both provide services and product that are intangible, both deal in perishable output and both rely primarily on soft skills sets. In this instance, the educational institution is the business and the products created are the students themselves, built with the knowledge passed on and summarily output to society.

Six Sigma training courses can play a vital role in ensuring that students are given the knowledge, skills and experience needed to succeed in the outside world upon completion of their education. For businesses in the educational sector, Six Sigma can facilitate improvements to:

General timeliness and the processing data
The acquisition of high-quality teachers and students
Efficiency and effectiveness of teaching methods and the way information is communicated
Time spent on tasks not directly associated with the teaching of student i.e. admin

The creation of better monitoring and analysis systems for watching over performance and continually improving

The Lean Six Sigma methodology has always been 100% customer-focused, which in turn allows for the optimising of output for the benefit of those at the tail-end of the process/service provision. In order for improvements to be made, it is first important to dig right to the core of each essential process in order to carry out a full analysis of performance in accordance with mission, vision, potential and expectations. Once any defects have been isolated, they can be addressed in such a manner as to ensure they are never allowed to creep into the equation again.

Six Sigma training courses enable those working within any given industry sector to take a step back and evaluate performance and output with a somewhat third-person perspective, which can often make the difference between revolutionary improvement and remaining in a long-term rut.