MARKETING OF EDUCATIONAL SERVICES: AN EMPERICAL STUDY OF YOUTHS IN SOUTH-EAST ORISSA
AUTHOR 1: Asst.Prof.M.Choudhury, AFFILIATION : Presidency College,Berhampur,Odisha,india,
[email protected],9861517059 AUTHOR 2: Dr. P.C.Sahu AFFILIATION : Presidency College,Berhampur,Odisha,india,
[email protected] Keywords : Education In India, Service Marketing, Educational Services and Quality, professional education. Postal Address: C/o- Ratnamala Choudhury, At- Badakhemundi Street, Bhagawat Gaddi, Berhampur, Ganjam, Odisha - 760001 ABSTRACT Educational commodities in the global marketplace are evident as services and goods. Educational services encompass both programs and ancillary services. Changes to educational systems are neither monolithic nor consistent. The changes, as being technological, organizational, social, or adaptive, are not mutually exclusive categories, but provide a way to understand the complexities of “education leading to self-reliance”. With the advent of liberlisation, globalisation and privatization, the true spirit of professional education is rightly felt by the young mass to meet with the emerging challenges in the changing corporate culture. In general, commercialism and privatization are advocated as organizational mechanisms to address controversies around how best to improve educational efficiency, cater to pluralistic preferences, make institutions more accountable, and reduce government spending. Over the years radical changes have been taking place in the arena of educational services. To survive in the stiff and turbulent competitive market, educational institutions have also adopted practicing marketing their products and services. The present research focuses on understanding the youth’s needs & perception for selecting a educational institute to pursue their dream education & at the same time how it may be leveraged by the educational institutions to provide value based & need based quality education to market its available best services to the youth. It has also offered some valuable suggestions to the professional educational institutions to survive in the competitive and turbulent environment. Extensive literature review available, till date, was
Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2385476
carried out on the marketing of educational services. Objective oriented search strategy was adopted to understand the need of marketing educational services as per the youth’s need & requirement. All the research studies were documented through collecting data from both the primary sources & as well as from the secondary sources. It has been observed that the youths are more focusing to the quality education which enables them to get a initial platform with an adequate amount of knowledge & information in their core domain. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES : To find out the opinion of the students that whether academic excellence & placement are the two important key components along with best delivery of services by the institutions for selection of next level institutions. TYPES OF RESEARCH : Descriptive research paper APPROACH USED : Mixed Approach METHODOLOGY USED: Data Collection from both primary & secondary sources with due application of suitable statistical techniques. INTRODUCTION Needless to say, Educational commodities in the global marketplace are evident as goods and services. Educational services encompass both programs and ancillary services. Changes to educational systems are neither monolithic nor consistent. Changes in the content and form of educational services and goods occur at all levels and across cultures. The technological, organizational, social, or adaptive changes are not mutually exclusive categories, but provide a way to understand the complexities of “education leading to self-reliance”. With the advent of liberlisation, globalisation and privatization, the true spirit of professional education is rightly felt by the young mass to meet with the emerging challenges in the changing corporate culture. In general, commercialism and privatization are advocated as organizational mechanisms to address controversies around how best to improve educational efficiency, cater to pluralistic preferences, make institutions more accountable, and reduce government spending. The phrase school/business relationship can be misleading, since such partnerships encompass everything from genuine altruism to cynical exploitation of the youth market. Education system of India is often cited as one of the contributors to the economic rise of India. Its education system is the third largest in the world, after China and the United States. As of 2009, it has 20 central universities, 215 state universities, 100 deemed universities, 5 institutions established and functioning under the State Act, and 13 institutes which are of national importance. Other institutions include 16000 colleges, including 1800 exclusive women's colleges, functioning under these universities and institutions.
Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2385476
The emphasis in the tertiary level of education lies on science and technology. Indian educational institutions by 2004 consisted of a large number of technology institutes. Distance learning is also a feature of the Indian higher education system. Literature review From the time immortal, education had been enjoying the highest position in the service sector. It was regarded as one of the noble profession- the teachers were respected as per the parents in the society. Education is a pure service sector which is characterized by intangibility, inseparability, heterogeneity and pershability. Here, the offers are intangible and the service may be based on the reputation of an individual. The uniqueness of educational services marketing is that, instead of the traditional 4 P's, (Product, Price, Place, Promotion) there are 3 additional P's (consisting of People, Physical evidence, and Process) constitute marketing mix with 7 P's. In the past marketing of education in India had little significance because of the demand far exceeded the supply of service. People’s perception on government’s duty to cater the service & of the Indian economy, which majorly dependent on agriculture, hence people ignored the importance of education. However, over the years radical changes have been taking place in the arena of educational services. The traditional social service of “Guru-Shishya Parampara” has recently being surprisingly shifted to modern Commercial Service of marketing and competition to admit maximum number of students in institutions.
The growing awareness of the importance of education among the masses, corporatization of education, innovation in technology and privatization of educational services have led dramatic changes in the field. Today’s youth are keen on having the best career & making a mark to give justice to the so-called “Arthkaareshu Vidya (learning leading to earning)”. The importance of quality education & nurturing a great career is the dream of most youngsters as well as of their parents. With the availability of enough options to choose from the government.-owned institutions, private as well as foreign educational institutions, their perceptions are changed with the changing market scenario. This has, in turn, forced the education providers to take a re-look at their services offering, and redesign the service so as to be competitive in the marketplace to earn more revenue & expand their market. . To survive in the stiff and turbulent competitive market, educational institutions, particularly the institutions offering professional course like MBA, BBA, etc. are not lagging behind. They have also adopted practicing marketing their products and services. Sometimes they are not practicing customized marketing approaches for surviving in the competitive market. Marketing of education is gaining momentum with the entry of private institutions, change in people's attitude towards education and the changing scope for the different courses being offered. The technological changes and shrinking global boundaries have increased
the significance of marketing for education services. The education service can be described as a high contact, consumer and people based service. The achievement of universal participation in education will be fundamentally dependent upon the quality of education available.
The present research focuses on understanding the youth’s needs & perception for selecting a educational institute to pursue their dream education & at the same time how it may be leveraged by the educational institutions to provide value based & need based quality education to market its available best services to the youth. It has also offered some valuable suggestions to the professional educational institutions to survive in the competitive and turbulent environment. Extensive literature review available, till date, was carried out on the marketing of educational services. Objective oriented search strategy was adopted to understand the need of marketing educational services as per the youth’s need & requirement. All the research studies were documented through collecting data from both the primary sources & as well as from the secondary sources. It has been observed that the youths are more focusing to the quality education which enables them to get a initial platform with an adequate amount of knowledge & information in their core domain.
LITERATURE REVIEW Author
Affiliation
Research title
Research result
Cristian Stefan PhD Candidate, Doctoral Craciuna School, Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania
The quality consulting services management in the university educational system
Babak Daneshvar Rouyendegha , Turan Erman Erkanb
MBA Students’ preference on: online, formal and hybrid MBA Programs
abDepartment of Industrial Engineering, Atılım University, Ankara P.O .Box 06836, Turkey
John
J. Associate professors in the Quality Assurance in
The implementation of a quality management system according to a globally acknowledged standard may be an acceptable solution for a university, either private or public, to become more and more appreciated by delivering quality services which may even surpass the clients’ expectations. The result is that lecturer reputation comes before time flexibility of an online MBA program. Thus, if the interaction with the lecturer is increased in online MBA programs, then preference of online MBA programs could be higher. The Hybrid MBA (0,045) the top score due to its highest efficiency and performance. The online MBA (0,011) has the lowest score, and is ranked in the last place. Educational guarantees as a way to focus educators &
Lawrence, department of business at Education Michael A. the university of Idaho, Emerald Article: A McCollough Moscow, Idaho, USA conceptual framework for guaranteeing higher education Richard A student's initial Schmidt perception of value when selecting a college: an application of value added Steve O. Assistant Professor of American higher Michael Higher Education education system: Administration, Graduate consumerism School of versus Education, Kent State professionalism University, Kent, Ohio, USA Ghazi Ghaith American University of An exploratory study Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon of the achievement of the twenty-first century skills in higher education
Liza Gomes, Jamie Murphy
The Australian college of English, Sydney, new south wales , Australia Dept. of information management & marketing , the university of western Australia, crawley, Australia
an exploratory study of marketing international education online
drive quality improvements. Potential use of service guarantees to bring TQM ideals into the higher education classroom.
The study finds perceived value of the selected college is comprising of publication of tuition cost, tuition discounts, scholarship at entry & grants at entry.
The challenges before higher education scholars today include developing ways to enhance stewardship in higher education; educating the general public as to the nature, problems, and resources required to fulfil higher education’s mission; and, at the same time, remain true to higher education’s traditional values including the meeting of emerging societal needs The findings indicate that the basic scientific and technological skills of reading critically and writing persuasively as well as accessing and using information efficiently have been achieved to a great extent in the context of the study; whereas, mathematical and scientific skills and global awareness and cross-cultural issues still need more attention. Variations in the level of mastery as well as gender differences in the achievement of certain skills clusters were also identified and discussed inlight of the robustness of the theory of the “universal digital native”. The result shows that perspectives overseas students do use internet, hence institutions should immediately establish procedures for answering e-mail & review changing their websites to appeal overseas students
Kamal Abouchedid, Ramzi Nasser
Tom Bourner
Asst.prof at Notre dame university, zouk mosbeh, Lebanon Asst prof at bishop’s university, lennonxville, Canada The university of brighton, Brighton-UK
Assuring quality service in higher education: registration and advising attitudes in a private university in Lebanon The learning aims of higher education: a personal Reflection
This study attempts to measure student attitude of registration & academic advising across different faculties to assure positive quality service complementing that of the academic
Considers the role of higher education with reference to the development of students as people rather than simply receptacles for knowledge. Charts the author’s development as an educationist and suggests a current total of six learning aims which he sees to be of central importance in higher education, including such factors as disseminating up-to-date knowledge and facilitating personal development of students.
SCOPE OF THE STUDY For the purpose of the study all the professional management colleges of Ganjam District of Odisha State were covered and data relating to various aspects of the study were collected from the final seminar students. Survey period – September, 2012 to October, 2012.
METHODOLOGY USED Primary sources: Data was collected from the students of different institution/colleges, of Ganjam District of South Odisha, personal interviews, filling up of the questionnaire by the respondents and personal discussion with the students of various management institutions. Secondary sources : Related books, journals and reports as well as internet sources were consulted. Analysis and Interpretation: Statistical tools such as, tables, diagrams, etc are used. Sampling Plan: 100 students who are pursuing their final semester in professional management education were selected on a Simple Random Sampling Method, however 66 respondents have expressed their perceptive views.
HYPOTHESIS
H1-Selection of institutions by the prospectors is on the basis of the academic excellence, quality service of the institution.
H2-Individuals are influenced by the peer group, friends, family members and media to select the institution.
ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF SURVEY FINDINGS To study the behavioral attitude of the students those who are pursuing higher education/professional management education and to understand their feeling on choosing and joining in the institution field survey had been conducted. The survey analysis was made from the students from the following parameters. DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILE The students were classified on the basis of age, occupation, gender and; institution and the information in this respect is shown in Table No.1 Table 1 Demographic Profile of Sample Characteristic Age 18-20 20-22 22-24 24-26 Occupation Student Gender Male Female Colleges Presidency College Institute of Technocraft Berhampur Uiversity Nexus college of management
Frequency
Percentage
07 15 35 09
10.6 22.7 53.0 13.7
66
100
41 25
62.12 37.98
16
24.25
10
15.15
10
15.15
10
15.15
Imperial 10 15.15 college CIST 10 15.15 Source: Compilation of Primary data The Table: 1 exhibits the demographic profile of the students of professional management education institution of Ganjam District of South Odisha. All the respondents are between the age group of 18 to 26 years. Out of 62% are male. Except the students of Presidency College the numbers of respondents of other colleges remain same. The demographic data are being presented below in a graphical form. Table- 2 Reliability Statistics Cronbach's Alpha
Cronbach's Alpha Based on Standardized Items
.759
N of Items .747
20
We can see from the Table, that Cronbach's alpha is 0.759,This was compared with all extraction coefficients and researcher come to know that there is a a high level of internal consistency for our scale with this specific sample for further study.
Table - 3 Component Correlation Matrix Component
1
2
3
1
1.000
.151
.027
2
.151
1.000
.056
3
.027
.056
1.000
Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. Rotation Method: Promax with Kaiser Normalization.
Table - 4 ANOVA with Friedman's Test Sum of Squares Between People Within People
Df
Mean Square
112.903
64
1.764
Between Items
94.480
a
19
4.973
Residual
516.420
1216
.425
Total
610.900
1235
.495
Friedman's Chi-Square
191.001
Sig
.000
Total
723.803
1299
.557
Grand Mean = 1.37 a. Kendall's coefficient of concordance W = .131.
Factor analysis The perceptive views with regard to different factors that have been guided to the respondents to opt/express his/her desires to pursue for higher studies are analysed by using statistical tools to find out the mean and standard deviation is presented in the Table No.2. Table No.5 Analysis of various factors Mean
Std. Deviation
INTREST FOR HIGHER EDUCATION
1.23
0.606
INTREST FOR PROFESSIONAL PROGRAMME
1.17
0.627
CAREER OPPORTUNITY
1.08
0.367
ENHANCEMENT OF PROFESSIONAL OUTLOOK
1.26
0.735
COLLEGE REPUTATION
1.85
0.749
COLLEGE'S ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE
1.32
0.773
SERVICE DELIVERED
1.20
0.506
EXTRA CURRICULAR
1.25
0.662
RAGGING FREE
1.22
0.515
PAYABILITY
1.40
0.844
TRANSPORTAION
1.28
0.718
CAMPUS RECRUITMENT
1.02
0.124
INFRASTRUCTURE
1.49
0.732
INTERACTION
1.42
0.808
ALUMINA FORUM
1.51
1.002
MAX MEDICA COVERAGE
1.28
0.718
UPDATED FACULTY
1.12
0.415
ACCREDITION & AFFILIATION
1.40
0.880
DECISSION INFLUNCED family, peer groups, etc.
1.95
0.513
According to this Mean & SD value the college reputation, Infrastrcuture & Alumina Forum is influenced by the peer-family group. Table – 6 Component Matrixa
Component 1
2
3
INTREST FOR HIGHER EDUCATION
.576
.395
-.441
INTREST FOR PROFESSIONAL PROGRAMME
.437
.290
-.394
CAREER OPPORTUNITY
.560
.402
-.367
ENHANCEMENT OF PROFESSIONAL OUTLOOK
.532
.384
-.190
COLLEGE REPUTATION
.367
.528
.522
COLLEGE'S ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE
.661
-.379
.180
SERVICE DELIVERED
.184
.275
-.224
EXTRA CURRICULAR
.615
-.342
-.083
RAGGING FREE
.253
.031
.180
PAYABILITY
.194
.662
.398
TRANSPORTAION
.607
.137
-.322
CAMPUS RECRUITMENT
-.059
.056
-.032
INFRASTRUCTURE
.483
-.211
.107
INTERACTION
.462
-.496
.437
ALUMINA FORUM
.229
.303
.668
MAX MEDICA COVERAGE
.623
-.418
-.005
UPDATED FACULTY
.394
-.538
.194
ACCREDITION & AFFILIATION
.281
.147
.691
DECISSION INFLUNCED
.232
-.388
-.386
Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. a. 3 components extracted.
From the above table we selected the list dependent variable( College Reputation, Service delivered, Pay ability, & campus recruitment) & independent varaiable (Higher education, Professional Programme, Career opportunity, Professional outlook, College academic excellence, Extra curricular, Ragging free campus, transportation, Infrastructure, interaction, Media coverage, updated faculty & decision influenced )
Table – 7 ANOVAb Model 1
Sum of Squares Regression
Df
Mean Square
7.696
5
1.539
Residual
62.765
59
1.064
Total
70.462
64
F
Sig. 1.447
.221 a
a. Predictors: (Constant), MAX MEDICA COVERAGE, INFRASTRUCTURE, DECISSION INFLUNCED, COLLEGE'S ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE, INTERACTION b. Dependent Variable: COLLEGE REPUTATION
FINDINGS From the Table No 3 we can interpret that the decision influence by the peer-family is having highest mean i.e 1.95, and lowest variance as 0.555 shows that individuals are influenced by the peer group, friends, family members and media to select the institution is true.
Table No 4 shows that college reputation do have dependent on the other independent variable i.e max media coverage, infrastructure, college academic excellence, interaction & decision influenced by peer-family group, hence the H1-Selection of institutions by the prospectors is on the basis of the academic excellence, quality service of the institution is also acceptable.
CONCLUSION & SUGGESTION From the above findings we can suggest that the Students were highly influenced by the friends , family & peer groups based on the college reputation, Infrastructure, strong alumina forum & academic excellence. Hence the institutions should follow the quality norms to excel in academic, supported by alumina forum & attract the students with infrastructure to create the institutional reputation. LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
All types’ institutions could not be covered.
All the students of different semester as well as last semester could not be covered and contacted.
The study is not free from limitation of accuracy and time.
Out of 100 approached respondents only 66 have expressed their views.
The study is confined only to Ganjam District of South Odisha.
Non cooperation of institutional authority.
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