The 21st century management is an educational method which tries to anticipate changes of the automatic, multidisciplinary, skillful, and tough industrial world. Besides, it also involves the principals of effectiveness and efficiency, introduces the life of the industrial society, and trains mental and moral resilience. Those are the elements of educational management and teaching in vocational high schools which aims at creating graduates who are ready to work. Therefore, the management should apply problem-based, collaborative, project-based, as well as link and match learning methods.  

Based on the problems faced in vocational schools and economic policy direction, those schools need to be reformed so that they can function as the schools which are able to prepare their students to enter the world of work. The reformation can be directed to the restructuring of the composition of vocational high schools, the improvement of school management performance, and the search of employment market overseas.

The statements above were delivered by Dr. Widiyarti in her dissertation open examination in the Graduate School Hall of Yogyakarta State University, Friday (5/3). She added that vocational education institution had a moral responsibility to provide best services for its students and periodically should have accounted for its program implementation and the use of funds transparently and accountably to the stakeholders. She also explained that through her research, she tried to describe and analyze the quality management in vocational high schools, develop the suitable quality management in the 21st century in vocational high schools, and examine the difficulty level of model implementation and model productivity. 

The research, promoted by Prof. Zamroni and Prof. Dr. Sugiyono, showed that the quality management applied in two observed vocational high schools had not had clear specification. Therefore, the suitable quality management to be developed was the human resources performance-based vocational high school management. Meanwhile, high performance human resources are needed to conduct this quality management. Finally the result of Chairperson of the Board of Examiners decided that Dr. Widiyarti passed her dissertation examination and became the 171st doctor at YSU as well as the 47th in Technology and Vocational Education Doctorate Program with a ‘very satisfying’ result. (sinta)