Q-Ed Teams - 2002
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Student Quality Education

The Geelong Quality Council, together with the Geelong Career Teachers Association and local enterprises, launched a program in 1994 to take the message of quality to local secondary school students.

The objective of the Q-Ed Teams (Quality Education Teams) program is to give students an understanding of quality principles as well as giving them an opportunity to put these principles into practice. The students, through the experience of working as a team in solving a real life problem in a business setting, gain a better understanding of the nature of work and how business operates. Students learn a systematic approach to problem solving that covers the collection, organisation and presentation of data.

The program involves a team of six Year 11 students selected from each participating school. Students make a written application for inclusion in the program and are selected after an interview with the school's careers teacher and the representative from the host organisation.

Teams undertake a full day of training covering the basic concepts of quality with reference to internal and external customers, employee involvement and a very strong emphasis on the application of basic problem solving tools. The training also covers the personal interaction skills needed to work effectively in a team. The student team then spends a week at the host organisation solving the nominated problem. A facilitator from the host organisation advises and assists the students. On the final day, the team makes a presentation of its findings to management.

The program has a number of benefits. Firstly, the students have increased their skill base and self confidence. Secondly, the careers teachers have gained a better understanding of the latest techniques used by organisations to assist their employees to work as teams in solving problems. Finally, the host organisation has benefited by having some enthusiastic students look at creative ways of solving the selected problem.

The program has also been used with teams of Secondary School Teachers.

This highly acclaimed and successful program has expanded from 6 schools in 1994 to 15 schools in 13 host organisations in 1997.

Participating host organisations have included:

Participating secondary schools have included:

Want to participate?

December 29, 2006 Send comments about this web site to webmaster@gqc.org.au