SERVICE DELIVERY AND CUSTOMER SATISFACTION IN TERTIARY EDUCATION

TABLE OF CONTENT

Title page

Approval page

Dedication

Acknowledgment

Abstract

Table of content

 CHAPTER ONE

1.0   INTRODUCTION 

1.1        Background of the study

1.2        Statement of problem

1.3        Objective of the study

1.4        Research question

1.5          Research hypotheses

1.6        Significance of the study

1.7        Scope and limitation of the study

1.8       Definition of terms

1.9          organization of the study

CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 introduction

2.2 conceptual review

2.3 empirical review

CHAPTER THREE

3.0        Research methodology

3.1    sources of data collection

3.3        Population of the study

3.4        Sampling and sampling distribution

3.5        Validation of research instrument

3.6        Method of data analysis

CHAPTER FOUR

DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

4.1 Introductions

4.2 Data analysis

CHAPTER FIVE

5.1 Introduction

5.2 Summary

5.3 Conclusion

5.4 Recommendation

Appendix

Abstract

Students’ satisfaction and their intentions are recognized as rather important aspects in higher education institution’s strategy in a competitive private higher education sector. However, what drives students’ satisfaction and retention is the service quality, and this quality comes from the combination of excellent learning and non-learning process. Building on service quality dimension literature, this study aims to investigate the antecedents of students’ intention to choose and stay with private higher education institutes. Through an adapted questionnaire survey, students’ response was measured on a 5-point likert scale. The results suggested that perceived service quality is positively correlated to satisfaction; perceived service quality and satisfaction are positively correlated to students’ retention

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

• Background of the study

Education in higher institutions of learning is very pertinent in as far as home capital investment is concerned. Higher Institutions of learning develop human resource through teaching, conducting research and community service by interacting (Okwakol, 2009). The competition in HE is mostly in terms of student numbers, quality staff and resources which are key in the provision of education. Because of the increasing demand, education has moved away from being the service for only the elite as it is known, to a service open to the masses. In 1987, there was only one university in Nigeria with a student population of about 3000000 students. As of now, there are over 70 universities in Nigeria both private and public (Okwakol, 2009). All institutions; public, private, profit or non-profit can prosper or suffer from the public’s perceived image or brand of them. Customer satisfaction largely depends on the quality of services provided by any organization (Zhou, 2011). Fundamentally, concerns on service quality have increasingly become common due to the fact that most consumers (customers) continue to be well informed on their sovereignty and right to receive better and quality services. This is widely enhanced due to availability of information on products and services quality. Irrespective of the sector in question, globally the consumers expect to be served well and have their concerns and needs satisfied to their expectations (Daniel, 2012). This has been seen both in the developed and developing countries, in almost all sectors including the education sector which is seen as the vehicle behind economic and social development. In a broader perspective, education institutions play a very significant role in developing and training management experts for different industries by integrating their programs and benchmarking with best institutions in the world to enable students become suitable in various industries (Zeithemal, 2014). In Kenya, private institutions in higher learning have come up to help bridge the gap between the students’ needs and the capacities of public institutions. However, quality service by universities can be said to be one of the issues which affects satisfaction in the industry and therefore worthy an exploration in this study. Universities are important vehicles in promoting educational goals in many countries all over the world. They supplement service delivery especially where the public universities would not have managed to cater for the academic needs due to overwhelming numbers of students seeking higher education services (Uden, 2013). Alternatively, these institutions are seen as forms of investments, in which case the owners of such institutions benefit economically, as well as create more job opportunities not only to the faculty members, but also to many other professions such as accountants, human resource managers, administrators, planners, medical practitioners, and many other people who are employed in the support staff to help promote service delivery in such institutions. In this regard, the presence of such institutions is not only a positive contribution to a country’s education sector, but also to the country’s economy in terms of improved gross domestic product (GDP), employment opportunities, and even tax revenues to the government. Service quality spreads from business to education. Many higher education institutions have been stimulated and influenced by service quality both for teaching and administrative support functions. Focusing on the customer is an essential principle of service quality, and the customers for the service of a higher education fall into five groups: the students, the employees, the government and the public sector, and the industry and wider community (Martensen, Gronholdt, Elkildsen, and Kristensen, 2000). Service quality is a pervasive strategic force and a key strategic issue in any organization. It is no surprise that practitioners and academics alike are keen on accurately measuring and understanding issues affecting service quality delivery. It has become a critical factor in enabling firms to achieve a differential advantage over their competitors and thus, it makes a significant contribution to profitability and productivity (Sanchez, Gazques Abad, and Fernandez, 2007). Tertiary institutions need to be concerned not only with what the society values in the skills and abilities of their graduates, but also with how their students feel about their educational experience. Owlia and Aspinwall conducted a survey examining the views of different professionals and practitioners on the quality in higher education. They concluded that customer orientation in higher education is a generally accepted principle (Owlia and Aspinwall, 1997). They construed that from the different customers of higher education, students received the highest rank. As a result, students‟ experience in a university should be a key issue of which performance indicators need to address. It therefore becomes important to identify determinant or critical factors affecting students‟ perception of the quality of service that they receive since they are the primary customers. Repositioning for quality service indicates a movement from the present level of quality service to a higher level. Makinde (2007) posited that “for the sake of Nigeria and African people that we lead, we cannot afford to do business as usual with a pathological affinity for authority and positions, but a corresponding allergy for responsibility and accountability”. Service quality deliveries, therefore, is necessary and even a sufficient condition for the survival of the university education in Nigeria and Africa in general. University education in Nigeria dates back to 1943 with the setting up of the Elliot commission by the British Colonial Government, whose recommendations ushered in the establishment of the university college, Ibadan (an offshore campus of the University of London) in 1948, (Okojie 2007). At independence in 1960, one regional university – the University of Nigeria, Nsuka (UNN) was established, while two other regional universities – the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria and the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) and one federal university, the University of Lagos, were established in 1962. In 1972 the University of Benin came into being. The Federal government, in 1975, took over all non-federal universities and established additional three making a total of nine federal universities. Private university education came into operation in 1999, when the federal government approved the first three private universities. Presently the country has a total of 94 universities made up of 26 federal; 30states; and 32 private. The Nigerian university commission (NUC) is the sole regulatory body for university education in Nigeria. In its effort at improving quality, the following programmes are put in place: accreditation, approval of courses and programmes, maintenance of minimum academic standard, monitoring of universities, giving guidelines for setting up of private universities, monitoring of private universities, prevention of the establishment of illegal campuses and appropriate sanctions (NUC 2007). The efforts of the commission so far moderated the activities of the various universities; however it has not adequately addressed the quality of the Nigerian graduates. Therefore, there is need for deliberate efforts by the administrators, proprietors, and all stakeholders to ensure quality service delivery in the Nigerian university education system. Currently the number of private universities has increased to 28, which means for any of these to survive in the face of the present keen competition, quality service should be the watch word.

 

• STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Most developing countries are facing challenges in keeping to the required high standards of education (Hasan et. al., 2011). In Nigeria especially, the national university commission (NUC), had once and several times closed campuses and stopped accreditation of some universities. This comes as a result of some universities offering programs that have not been approved by NUC (Caleb et. al., 2011). Learning in some universities has been seriously challenged due to insufficient facilities and quality of the needed infrastructure and luck of lecturers in some faculties to handle the tasks and failure to attain the required curriculum standard set up by various regulating bodies (Sarah et. al., 2011). The government for example may not compromise on the quality of education given to its citizens and they require all public and private universities to observe the set standards. This of course synchronizes with the world over education offered which must be of the highest quality. Students may be forced to champion for quality service in higher education as this makes them better members of the society (Raphael, 2014). The subject of service quality has in the recent past sparked lots of concerns from different quarters in the bid of trying to foster an appropriate system that can align Nigerian youths and learners to the global demands in the professional environments, which are entirely dependent on academic achievements (Rodrigues, 2013). Nevertheless, it is more complex to conceptualize the quality of service as opposed to that of goods. Given the fact education is purely a service provided to the publics; its measurement can only be measured against some indicators that are different from those used in goods. Some of the approaches include the use of SERVQUAL model, which expounds on the five service dimensions (Jayanth, 2015). Ideally, the dimensions can be measured based on the perceptions of the customers who receive the service, and in this case the students (Raphael, 2014). The first aim of this study therefore was to identify how the students’ perceptions are affected by the nature and quality of services offered in private universities in Nigeria, taking into consideration the challenges faced by private universities in the country such as lack of funding among others. It is against this background that this study wanted to find out the impact of service quality in student satisfaction on the context of private universities in the Nigerian higher education sector.

• OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

The study has one objective which is broken down into two, the general objective and the specific objective; the general objective is to examine service delivery and customer satisfaction in tertiary education in Nigeria, the specific objective are;

1. To examine the effect of quality service delivery on the patronage of tertiary institutions in Nigeria
2. To ascertain if there is any significant relationship between service delivery and customer satisfaction in Nigeria tertiary education

• To examine the role of NUC in ensuring effective and quality service delivery in tertiary education in Nigeria

1. To proffer suggested solution to the identified problem
   • RESEARCH QUESTION

The following research questions were formulated by the researcher to aid the completion of the study,

1. Does quality service delivery has any effect on customer patronage of tertiary institutions in Nigeria?
2. Is there any significant relationship between service delivery and customer satisfaction in Nigeria tertiary education?

• Does NUC play any role in ensuring effective and quality service delivery in tertiary education in Nigeria?
  • RESEARCH HYPOTHESES

The following research hypotheses were formulated by the researcher to aid the completion of the study

H₀: There is no significant relationship between service delivery and customer satisfaction in Nigeria tertiary education

H₁: There is a significant relationship between service delivery and customer satisfaction in Nigeria tertiary education

• SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

As there is a tough competition going on all over the world especially in the field of education, quality of service and student satisfaction plays a crucial role for success. This research took place to determine the service quality delivery and student satisfaction among graduate students studying at Nigerian universities. Management: The findings of this study relates to students‟ satisfaction with regards to the quality of services offered by the learning institutions. This provides the management with an effective guideline to develop the quality of service to be offered. This study is helpful to the university’s management as it helps to understand the level of student satisfaction by identifying which aspects are the most important. This research is also helpful when the university is undergoing new changes.

Employees: The study is important to university employees as it makes them knowledgeable on what it takes to implement quality services in their day-to-day activities.

Academics and Researchers: The study is useful to academics and researchers within institutions as a basis of reference and contributes valuable information on service quality measurement in tertiary colleges, in particular, the dimensions of tertiary colleges‟ service quality.

• SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The scope of the study covers service delivery and customer satisfaction in tertiary education in Nigeria. The major challenge that limited this study was time. The respondents were too busy and had limited time to respond to the questionnaires. This limitation was mitigated by providing an incentive to motivate the respondents to fill in the questionnaires by providing pens and well packed questionnaires that motivated the respondents to fill them. The study faced the limitation of poor cooperation from the respondents as some of the respondents approached refused to fill in the questionnaires. This challenge was countered by emailing the questionnaires in form of Google forms to the respondents to ease the data collection process and constantly reminded them via email on the urgency and importance of the research.

• OPERATIONAL DEFINITION OF TERMS

Service

Service is a transaction in which no physical goods are transferred from the seller to the buyer. The benefits of such a service are held to be demonstrated by the buyer’s willingness to make the exchange. Public services are those that society as a whole pays for.

Service delivery

Service delivery is a component of business that defines the interaction between providers and clients where the provider offers a service, whether that be information or a task, and the client either finds value or loses value as a result.

Customer

A customer is the recipient of a good, service, product or an idea – obtained from a seller, vendor, or supplier via a financial transaction or exchange for money or some other valuable consideration

Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is a term frequently used in marketing. It is a measure of how products and services supplied by a company meet or surpass customer expectation

Tertiary education

Tertiary education, also referred to as third-level, third-stage or postsecondary education, is the educational level following the completion of a school providing a secondary education.

1.9 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY

This research work is organized in five chapters, for easy understanding, as follows

Chapter one is concern with the introduction, which consist of the (overview, of the study), statement of problem, objectives of the study, research question, significance or the study, research methodology, definition of terms and historical background of the study. Chapter two highlight the theoretical framework on which the study its based, thus the review of related literature. Chapter three deals on the research design and methodology adopted in the study. Chapter four concentrate on the data collection and analysis and presentation of finding.  Chapter five gives summary, conclusion, and recommendations made of the study.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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