Apriadi Gunawan

Apriadi Gunawan
The Jakarta Post
Medan

The state University of North Sumatra (USU) may become the
country's second profit-oriented college after the Bandung
Institute of Technology (ITB), which recently changed its non-
commercial corporate status amid rapid education development.

USU leaders have proposed changing the university's non-
commercial status in order to be able to freely raise tuition
fees and other funds to improve education quality at the
university.

The decision was announced by USU Rector Chairuddin P. Lubis
during a ceremony marking the university's 44th anniversary on
Tuesday.

Present at the event were North Sumatra Governor T. Rizal
Nurdin, foreign diplomats, rectors from other universities, local
military and police chiefs, USU students and its alumni
graduates.

Chairuddin said the decision was made during a meeting of
senior USU leaders on Aug. 23.

"The change in the university's status is based on the
prevailing conditions and the results of observing the
development of universities in Indonesia in the last 10 years, in
which higher education institutions have faced drastic changes,"
he said.

The decision followed the increasing involvement of many
profit-making sectors in dealing with higher education colleges,
and the advancement of global technology, which all required the
changes of educational systems and management, he added.

"The status change will also shift the vision of the USU to
become 'a university for industry'," the rector said.

He said the status shift would empower his university to
privately raise funds through its business activities and to
recruit and pay for more staff and lecturers.

The government would not cover the costs of new staff but
would still temporarily cover the salaries of current USU
lecturers and staff officials, despite the change of its status,
he said.

The university will have to cover all the costs of salaries
after a 10-year transitional period, he said.

"The status of the employees will no longer be civil servants,
but they will be hired on the basis of contract agreements. The
USU has the right to lay off those deemed unproductive," the
rector said.

Chairuddin said the government had so far provided the
university with Rp 38 billion per year to pay the salaries of
1,652 employees, including lecturers, and Rp 10 billion for
yearly development programs.

Governor Rizal welcomed as a positive step the planned change
of the USU's status, saying the move was in line with the new
laws offering autonomy to the education sector.

The government had recently inaugurated the new status of the
state-run ITB to become a profit-making education institution in
relation to the national campus autonomy programs.

Apart from the ITB, the government has also planned to make
several other leading state universities, including the
University of Indonesia, the Gadjah Mada University and the Bogor
Institute of Agriculture, pilot programs for the campus autonomy
policy.

However, these three universities have yet to respond to the
government's plans.

Under the autonomy plans, universities are allowed to
establish business cooperation more freely with other parties,
and that the rector is no longer appointed by the education
minister but by a board of trustees comprising representatives
from the government, students and the community.

Only the ITB has its new rector appointed by its board of
trustees, not by the national education minister.