The secondary schools thus did not meet the expectations of educators in any of the EDUSERV dimension. Secondary schools should be responsive to the changing needs of their educators. If a school is not aware of its educators’ requirements, it cannot devote resources effectively to improving areas that may have the most significant impact on customersatisfaction.Itisapparentthatpropertrainingofschoolnon-academicpersonnel in service efficiency and reduction of bureaucracy will enhance internal service quality. This is clearly a cause of concern for the schools as these negative differentials indicate thatschoolsareunderperforminginrelativelyimportantareas.Theevaluationofservice quality in secondary education through the measurement of educators’ satisfaction has significant implications for strategic planning. Educators did not seem to attach much importance to the dimensions of school facilities and assurance-discipline as they did for empathy, reliability, and responsiveness. The findings suggest that concentrating resources on these three service quality dimensions may help secondary schools to improve educators’ perceptions of their work experience. Secondary schools should react accordingly, using human resource strategies which recognize staff as key customers of the organisation. Policy makers and management should be aware of the important role played by educators in shaping students’ perceptions of the latter’s educational experience and the school. The study also revealed that the dimensions of empathy and responsivenessinfluencededucators’overallsatisfaction.Theempathydimension,which taps into the caring, individualized attention the organisation provides to its customers, wasasignificantdeterminantofsatisfactionwiththeschoolexperience.Thisiscongruent withChowdhary(2000)whofoundthatempathyandresponsivenessweremostimportant in labour intensive industry while the findings indicate that service quality provided by the state secondary schools in Mauritius still needs to be improved to reach the level of educators’ expectations. This study highlights the importance for secondary schools to conduct service quality surveys among its educators and consider their opinions in identifying areas for service quality improvements. Assessing service quality fromthe educators’ perspective and understanding howthe different dimensions influence overall satisfaction should enable service organisations to effectively and efficiently design the service-delivery process, thus ultimately providing better service to the external customers. Delivering internal service quality should be meaningful for policy makers who wish to develop improvements in the quality of education provided by secondary schools. Knowing what the educators’ expect is an essential process in delivering quality service at any level of the school operations. According to Schneider and Bowen (1985), it is important for service organisation to acknowledge employees’ role in service delivery. Assessing internal service quality and having a better understanding on how various dimensions influence overall service quality would enable secondary education to efficiently design its service-delivery process.Itistheresponsibilityofmanagementtoprovidethenecessaryresourcestomeet the service quality standards of internal customers regarding school services and infrastructure. Policy makers have to ensure that as part of a quality management programme,theschoolmanagement shouldbecarefullyselectedandtrainedso thatthey performnotonlythefunctionaltasksbutarealsoabletodisplaythequalitiesofempathy, reliability and responsiveness. Such an approach would appear to have more inherent meritthanthedevelopmentofagovernmentimposedcentralisedsystemwhichdoeslittle to focus on the particular requirements of educators. Finally, the EDUSERV instrument may not guarantee improved levels of service quality but it may serve as a dynamic
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measurementfunction,implementingguidancetoareasof weaknesses,givingsecondary schools the opportunity to implement essential improvements with a focus on service quality delivery.
Limitations and future research directions Although, this is the first study to test the validity of the five-dimension structure of service quality and the reliability of a research instrument in secondary education, the limitationsofthestudyshouldbenoted.Thefirstlimitationisthattheexaminedschools were from only one of the four educational zones in Mauritius. Further research could investigate secondary schools in the different educational zones of the country. Future studies could also use the EDUSERV to investigate the perceptions held by school management and students with respect to their expectations and perceptions of service qualityinsecondaryschools.Itwillalsobeusefultodetermineifthereisanysignificant mean difference in the overall satisfaction level according to the service provided by secondary schools and the demographic profiles o