Two atom bombs dropped on Japan during 1945, converted the thriving, industrial empire of Japan to dust and smoke, with millions killed or maimed. Every one thought it would be centuries before Japan re-captures its pristine glory, but Japan rose like a phoenix from ashes to become the leading nation of the world within a short span of time. The power behind this miracle was fierce will, determination and commitment of Japanese people and their quest for quality. They adopted Quality Circles, Kaizen & TQM as ways of building attitudes to surmount problems, improve quality and to be competitive.

Sir Edward Deming’s idea of Quality Circle took a firm root in Japan and became a way of life. Now Japan boasts of 1 million QCs’ in various industries and business. After this there was a quality revolution with various quality gurus like Dr. J.M. Juran, Dr. Kauru Ishikawa, Dr. W.A. Shewart spreading the message of quality throughout the world. People all over the world soon realised that quality was the panacea for survival.

Quality Circles or Quality Control Circles, as they are called in Japan, is a participative philosophy woven around quality control and problem solving techniques at the bottom level. It exemplifies the policy of people building, respect for human beings and creates a participative management culture. This concept enables the grass-root level employees to play a meaningful and significant role in their organisation. The responsibility for the attainment of Quality depends on all the departments of an Organisation. The main purpose behind Quality Circles is to build the people and produce quality people first before making quality products or providing quality services. It is to make a ‘Man’.

Quality Circle philosophy, a value based concept has also been fruitfully adopted in Schools for infusing a spirit of excellence, emotional development, humaneness, harmony, co-operation, character building and discipline. The credit for introducing the concept of Quality Circles (QC) in Education goes to Mr. Jagdish Gandhi. It was during his visit to Japan in 1992 that Mr. Gandhi first became aware of Quality Control Circles (QCC) and how Prof. Ishikawa successfully shaped them as formal groups within factories and offices, for the purpose of improving the quality of manufactured goods and services on a continuous basis. The resultant quality revolution firmly established Japan as an economic superpower after the devastation caused by the Second World War.

Mr. Gandhi thought of using Kaizen philosophy of continuous improvement and QCs’ in schools to inculcate quality awareness at a tender age in children, when minds are impressionable and the attitudes can be built. The basic aim was to ‘Catch Them Young’.

He collected literature on Quality Circles and on his return to India, he introduced the idea at the CMS Principal’s meeting. Taking inspiration from Mr. Gandhi, Dr. (Mrs) Vineeta Kamran, Principal, City Montessori School, Kanpur Road, Lucknow sought the help of Mr. P.C.Bihari and Mr. Saomi Das, the QC experts from Indian Railways to start QCs’ in her school.

CMS, with a co-operative and encouraging background, provided rich soil for experimentation. History was created when a group of five of Dr. Kamran’s students constituted Quality Circle ‘Jai Jagat’, the world’s first Quality Circle by school children, and prepared a case study "How to Concentrate on Studies". Their path-breaking effort won accolades at national and international levels and was proclaimed the most "outstanding case study" at the International Convention of Quality Control Circles at Hong Kong in 1994.