Academic culture seems absent from our schools

Academic culture seems absent from our schools

By Mochtar Buchori

JAKARTA (JP): When in a seminar on academic culture a
participant asked, "What is academic culture?" I was stunned. How
could someone participate in a seminar on academic culture
without knowing what it is?

My worry was somewhat diminished when I discovered that among
the thirty-odd participants, there were one or two others who
also did not seem to understand what academic culture was.

Since everyone else seemed paralyzed by the participant's
question, I volunteered to answer, saying: "Academic culture is
basically a set of values that regulate the common behavior of
members of any learning community."

That was the simplest explanation I could offer at the time.

I elaborated on my answer by saying that as a place for
advanced learning, a university should strive to be a place of
continuous enrichment of knowledge, and at the same time guard
existing knowledge against generalizations and opinions that are
characterized by methodological obscurities.

Another participant gave the following explanation to stress
the need for a stronger academic culture in our universities:
"Academic culture in Indonesian universities needs to be
strengthened. If we fail to do this, other countries that
constantly reinvigorate their academic cultures will push us
further into a corner.

"Our poor performance in science and science-based endeavors
is the result of our neglecting to continuously foster academic
culture. The silence of our universities in facing assertions
that contain blatant lies is an undeniable fact concerning our
weakness in this case."

Some of the participants seemed offended by this explanation.
They asked for evidence concerning the weakness of our academic
culture. Patience ran thin with the rest of the participants and
they volunteered to provide their own evidence.

This included our low scientific productivity, lack of sincere
scientific debate in our scientific communities, and our lack of
courage to reject opinions that are not supported by both
convincing evidence and sound reasoning.

Those who took the position that our academic life was sound
seemed to genuinely believe that whatever shortcomings there were
in our institutions of higher learning, they had nothing to do
with academic culture.

Furthermore, they seemed to believe that academic culture was
merely an intellectual game played by academic snobs.

It became obvious at this point that the participants were
seated in two different camps.

Those who were sincerely concerned about the low level of
academic life in society were in the majority.

The others were those who naively believed we had done our
best in running our universities, and therefore should not be
blamed for any shortcomings that might still exist there.

This group considered any comparison to universities in
developed countries unfair.

The debate between the two groups was at times very heated.
But highly experienced people managed to control the situation
and steered the seminar into deliberation about the cause of the
sorry affair of our academic culture and the steps needed to be
taken to remedy the situation.

Two main factors were mentioned as the principal cause of our
low academic culture: the nation's culture, which was described
as "the mental map of the nation", and the management style of
our universities.

A foreign professor in social science research methodology
explained that Indonesian culture, as he knew it, contained
characteristics that were not conducive to the promotion of
scientific inquiry.

The reluctance of many Indonesian scientists, for instance, to
be engaged in rigorous scientific debate constitutes one such
obstacle. The question now is how are Indonesian academicians
going to tackle the problem. Are they going to modify this
cultural condition for the sake of the nation's scientific
progress or are they going to give up on the idea of promoting
science at Indonesian universities?

On the managerial side, the general opinion was that within
Indonesian universities bureaucracy has assumed a dominating
attitude with academic staff. This means that in Indonesian
universities, bureaucratic culture is more powerful than academic
culture.

University bureaucracy exists not to serve and promote
academic life, but to regulate it. Bureaucratic rules carry more
power than academic principles. Against this backdrop it should
not be surprising to anyone that academic culture cannot find
firm roots in our universities.

The discussion on ways and means that have to be taken to
strengthen academic culture in Indonesian universities was very
rich and varied. Throughout the debate, two ideas came forth very
clearly: that Indonesian universities should be given more
autonomy and deregulation should be implemented immediately.

One example of deregulation that was discussed concerned the
policy of Tridharma Perguruan Tinggi, or the regulation which
states that every university teaching staff member should be
involved in three activities: teaching, research and public
service.

Many participants argued that this policy should be revised
and should be viewed as a policy regulating the behavior of
institutions and not of individual members of universities. To
require that each member of a university be equally competent in
teaching, research, and public service would only make faculty
members become mediocre lecturers, mediocre researchers and
mediocre public servants.

While listening to the discussion, I was thinking of the many
regulations that have been imposed on our universities since
1963. I asked myself, "What kind of institution do we want to
make of our universities?"

I could not help but think of what Henri Frederic Amiel (1821-
1861) wrote in 1852. He said, "The test of every religious,
political, and educational system is the man which it forms. If a
system injures intelligence, it is bad. If it injures character,
it is vicious. If it injures the conscience, it is criminal."

Another thought was fleeting in my mind. It was in 1987, I
think, that the Ministry of Education and Culture legally adopted
the policy of granting academic freedom to our universities.

Why do Indonesian universities fail to strengthen their
academic mettle and performance after enjoying academic freedom
for ten years? I am inclined to think that academic freedom
without academic culture is meaningless.

The writer is an observer of social and cultural affairs.