The commitment of the IMH to develop a management system incorporating the principles of Total Quality goes back to the early years of business. Proof of this, for example, are the allocated budgets for the implementation and development of the quality system and model since 92, and measured customer and student satisfaction since 94. References to the fundamental principles of excellence have been in force since the very beginning. More specifically, but not necessarily limited to, this includes the following concepts:

• Focus on internal and external customer in the foundation statement.

• Continuous improvement.

• People development.

• Innovation.

• Social Responsibility.

• Result oriented management.

In 1992 already, the need to form a team of quality facilitators was detected, which was extended to all levels in 1995 when training in EFQM and quality assurance systems was started. The followed procedure was to train facilitators in external courses, who then instructed the rest of the staff.

Also, the Strategic Plan 1995 states that a primary goal is to "provide high quality training and services undertaken by the Centre", based on a strategy of continuous improvement and customer orientation. This quality focus ranges from internal organisation and communication all the way to quality in training and services, including the participation of all people, integration of staff and teamwork.

Quality in the IMH is understood as meeting customer needs fully for which reason our processes must be adapted to the customer’s expectations. Under these conditions, "the quality of service" is decisive in the search for "competitiveness."

In order to consolidate this strategy of quality, in 1995 it was decided to implement a quality assurance system and its subsequent certification was a key and innovative challenge in the educational sector, which would be a good pillar to move towards total quality. Hence a process structure was conceived for the overall management across the organisation consistent with the requirements of the ISO 9001 standard and with a focus, since its inception, on the principles of the already mentioned Total Quality model. The ISO 9001 certificate awarded in July 1998 marked an important milestone.

Since then, quality is integrated explicitly in the model of school management and starts a process that has yielded the following results:

• Approval of strategic plan. 1995.

• ISO 9001:94 Certification. 1998.

• The Silver Q (EFQM Award issued by the Basque Foundation for Quality Euskalit). 2000.

• Investor in People (IiP) Certificate. 2005.

• ISO 14001:2004 Certification. 2005.

• Silver Bikain. 2008. This public official certificate awarded by the Basque Government attests to a certain level of use, presence and management of the Basque language by a given company or organization. The complete official bilingual name followed by the English version is as follows: Certificado de Calidad en la Gestión Lingüística Bikain, Euskararen Kalitate Ziurtagiria, Bikain Quality Certificate in Linguistic Management.

• OHSAS 18000 Certification. 2010.