Higher education needs revamping<\/p>\n
By Harkiman Racheman<\/p>\n
This is the first of two articles on the state of higher
\neducation in Indonesia.<\/p>\n
MEDAN, North Sumatra (JP): The general portrait of higher
\neducation in Indonesia today is still appalling. Despite numerous
\nappointments of different ministers of education and culture and,
\nhence, the necessary corrective measures they entail, the actual
\noperation of post-secondary education in Indonesia has not
\nimproved at all.<\/p>\n
The fact that there is an increasing number of overseas
\nuniversities aggressively holding educational exhibitions here,
\nin addition to the already-existing cooperation and affiliations
\nbetween local and overseas universities (largely for the sake of
\nconfidence building), seems to suggest explicitly our utter
\nimpotence in repairing the badly torn image of the Indonesian
\ninstitutions of higher learning.<\/p>\n
An interesting survey recently conducted by Asiaweek, the
\nresult of which was later published in its end-of-April issue,
\nsuggests an implication that, from all the existing higher
\neducational institutions in the country, only a handful of state
\nuniversities have been internationally acknowledged. However, due
\nto their low-level accreditation, these few institutions can no
\nway be prided upon!<\/p>\n
In the multidisciplinary category, for instance, Gadjah Mada
\nUniversity in Yogyakarta was placed 67th, slightly higher that
\nthe University of Indonesia, which was placed 70th. Diponegoro
\nUniversity in Semarang and Airlangga University in Surabaya are
\nrespectively 77th and 79th.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, in the science and technology category, the
\nrenowned Bandung Institute of Technology was surprisingly ranked
\n15th, below Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and
\nTaiwan University of Science and Technology; that is to say,
\nstill way below Korea Advanced Institute of Science and
\nTechnology or Tohoku University (Tokyo), currently the top two
\nuniversities in Asia.<\/p>\n
To a certain extent, the findings of this survey testify that
\nthe number of universities proper in Indonesia can be counted on
\nthe fingers of one hand. The rest, however, were not seriously
\nregarded, especially in terms of their quality of graduates,
\nlecturers, research output or financial resources.<\/p>\n
Now, with the country's ugliest economic crisis still very
\nmuch upon us, it is only logical that a great many people,
\nespecially common folk, should be pessimistic and distrustful of
\nthe prospects of our academic institutions.<\/p>\n
There may well have been innumerable determining factors as to
\nwhy the reputation of our schools of higher learning has been
\ngoing downhill all this time. Although it may take time to
\nidentify all of them properly, and this no doubt would involve
\ndetailed comprehensive studies, a few of the most tangible
\ndeterminants can nevertheless be discussed in greater detail
\nhere.<\/p>\n
To begin with, there is still a disturbing misconception
\nwithin society as regards the raison d'etre of institutions of
\nhigher education. Generally speaking, universities, for example,
\nare still construed as nothing more than training grounds or,
\neven worse, \"job-training centers\" the priority of which is to
\nproduce skilled labor.<\/p>\n
Most advertisements aiming at marketing these vocational
\ntraining-providers, as it were, which overload both our national
\nand provincial newspapers, unfortunately seem to support that
\nlongtime misconceived idea even further.<\/p>\n
By manipulating such misleading cliches as \"we train people to
\nbe skilled\", to be \"ready for immediate employment\" and \"we will
\nsecure a place in the global job market for our graduates\", such
\neye-catching advertisements, if any, seem to project only an
\nutterly unbalanced picture of our post-secondary learning
\ninstitutions.<\/p>\n
In other words, they only succeed in stressing one-sidedly the
\napplied segment of the educational training but, unfortunately,
\nby omitting and sacrificing the entire totality of its spiritual
\nsubstance which is all-embodying in its very nature.<\/p>\n
It is hard to deny that in one way or another this reality has
\na great deal to do with the still-existing tendency of our
\neducational politics. As it turns out, the government still
\nblatantly overemphasizes dry scientific and technological one-way
\ntraining without attempting harmonious association between the
\nteaching of science and technology on the one hand and that of
\nthe humanities on the other.<\/p>\n
In the 10th Nusantara Writers's Meeting held in Johor Baru on
\nApril 20, 1999, renowned Malaysian writer Dr. Muhammad Haji
\nSalleh reminded us again of the forgotten urgency to strike a
\nsymbiotic balance between the two poles.<\/p>\n
\"If we look at the world's greatest civilizations,\" Dr
\nMuhammad Haji Salleh said, \"such as French, English, Greek and
\nJapanese, we find that they have become famous for combining the
\ntwo of them. The French are proud of Descartes and Baudelaire, of
\nthe Eiffel and Cezanne, or of Sartre and Peugeot cars. In the
\nsame way, the Japanese are proud of their best electronic
\nproducts and equally of Basho's haiku and Kawabata's novels.\"<\/p>\n
The oft-misinterpreted \"Link and Match\" educational
\nphilosophy, popularized when Wardiman Djojonegoro was the
\nminister of education and culture, seems to have given more
\nemphasis than is necessary to the idea of educational training as
\nsheer support to economic and technological processes and growth.<\/p>\n
As a result, nonapplied sciences (especially the humanities)
\nwhich are undoubtedly essential, especially for their
\ncontribution to human psycho-spiritual development and well-
\nbeing, have been excessively marginalized and even deliberately
\nabandoned in order to give all the room to the domineering
\nscientific, technological as well as vocational trainings.<\/p>\n
It is not surprising, therefore, that universities being the
\ncenter of excellence (supposedly treating all branches of
\nknowledge indiscriminately) have been underestimated and
\ntrivialized at the same time. Their noble mission to enlighten
\nhighly talented people by equipping them with a broader outlook
\non life, supported by their scientifically objective attitude and
\nmature personality, has consequently been thoroughly neglected.<\/p>\n
Also compare this analysis with the written objective of
\nhigher education in Indonesia, as contained in Government
\nRegulation No. 30\/1990 on higher learning, which does not in
\nessence prioritize science and technology over the humanities but
\nrather deals with them in the same breadth.<\/p>\n
Within this regulation, it is mentioned loud and clear that
\nthe objective of Indonesian post-secondary learning is to produce
\ngraduates \"with academic and\/or professional competence who can
\nimplement, develop and\/or invent a body of knowledge, technology
\nand\/or art\" and then \"who can develop as well as expand ... and
\nattempt to put it into good use in order to heighten the social
\nwelfare of society as well as to enrich our national culture\".<\/p>\n
Therefore, in a national education seminar and workshop at the
\nBandung Teachers Training Institute (IKIP) on April 21,
\neducationalist J. Drost SJ reasserted that \"At present,
\nuniversities have been accused of being sheer vocational
\ninstitutions. However, now that this is fully appreciated, there
\nare efforts to convert them back into the teaching center of the
\nhumanities by, among other things, offering stadium generale, or
\nbasic courses.\"<\/p>\n
The writer graduated from Victoria University of Wellington,
\nNew Zealand. He is currently a Medan-based freelance writer and
\nuniversity teacher.<\/p>",
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