Campus autonomy: What does it mean?

Campus autonomy: What does it mean?

By Nirwan Idrus

This is the first of two articles exploring the meaning of
campus autonomy.

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Education and Culture Juwono
Sudarsono recently announced the granting of autonomy to four
leading state universities in Indonesia: the University of
Indonesia (UI), the Bogor Agricultural Institute (IPB), the
Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) and Gadjah Mada University
(UGM).

This is a refreshing change for higher education in Indonesia.
Some would say that it is about time. With the arrival of
globalization, the free-trade zone very early in the new
century/millennium, ever-increasing competition within Indonesia
for higher education provision and the real need to significantly
improve Indonesian human resources, such a decision is obviously
welcomed. It is understood that various meetings are now taking
place in those institutions about the matter of autonomy. It is a
good sign.

However, accepting the popular definition of autonomy, that is
in broad terms the granting of "self-rule", the process is a
formidable one in Indonesia and hence must be planned and
executed as carefully as possible. One small error will render
the idea unworkable and vested interests may use this as an
excuse to return to the old rules of centralization. Those who
are involved with higher education institutions may be frustrated
and dismayed with the hit-and-miss plan of delivering autonomy to
or empowering the institutions. They may declare that, for
example, the old style, i.e. centralization, is better. These
negative thoughts and utterances must be avoided at all costs, if
the empowerment process is to succeed. But how?

A potent method is by providing strong assurance of one's
seriousness to those involved as well as others, by way of
appropriate and supportive examples. In the first instance, this
will eliminate lip service. People will see that action is louder
than words. They will also see that there is a sense of
seriousness about the matter. People do become encouraged when
they see that others are also doing whatever they are supposed to
be doing. Their hopes start to build up, and as we all know, you
only need a flicker of hope to conquer the world. But who should
give the examples and who should see and learn from these
examples?

Examples should come from the top. That is, the highest
management, the highest governance and the top people,
particularly in a country like Indonesia, where the
Indonesian/Asian culture is very much revered. In the case in
hand then, the examples should be set by the Minister of
Education and Culture, by the Ministry of Education and Culture,
by the Directorate General for Higher Education (DGHE) and the
highest echelon within DGHE, led by the director general
(Director General DGHE).

Within institutions, university presidents must give examples
to everyone within the institutions, the deans of faculties must
provide examples to everyone within their faculties, the heads of
departments must provide examples to everyone within their
departments, the teaching staff must provide examples to their
students. Only when a cascading provision of good and supportive
examples occur can the empowerment process be said to have begun.

Please note that it has not finished, but has only started.
There are many other elements in the devolution process that must
be acted on in order to approach the end of the process. So why
don't we trace the provision of those examples above from the
minister to the students.

It is expected that as the political leader of his portfolio
he will give examples of empowerment, devolution and autonomy
within his sphere of influence. He will have to be sincerely
doing what he preaches, but he also has to be seen to be doing
so. He has to find a way of showing the whole country that he is
serious about change. Australians have a phrase for this: "fair
dinkum". The question is: Is the minister fair dinkum about what
he says? A real change that everyone will see and appreciate
(perhaps not straight away) may be the surrendering of the
"culture" portfolio in "education and culture" to another
ministry and minister.

In doing so, the new ministry will concentrate 100 percent on
education -- a major and extremely important portfolio if we want
to really build strong, formidable and appropriate national human
resources.

In doing so, the minister would completely cut off his
and his ministry's association with a portfolio that has been
anachronistic for 54 years, namely education and culture. It is a
portfolio that, as we have seen, has not met the expectations of
the nation and the people. With such an action, it is hoped that
many of the systems within the Ministry would be turned upside
down. It is hoped that there will be new procedures, a new modus
operandus, a new organizational structure and so on. While these
are only hopes, these hopes will not even flicker if that first
step is not taken. The promise for change can only happen with
change.

The ministry, as the administrative arm of the minister, must
also play its part. It must take this opportunity to apply the
many proven management and administrative practices not hitherto
used within the ministry to support the minister's decision. It
must take this opportunity to continually improve its efficiency
and effectiveness, in the name of the development of national
human resources.

It must therefore practice staff empowerment within the
ministry. It must take this opportunity to systematically reduce
unnecessary costs and wastage, a job easily undertaken by
critically examining and then changing its procedures, rules and
regulations. It must take this opportunity to practice what it is
administering -- education -- and continually educate its own
staff members to turn itself into a learning organization. It
must lead other ministries toward this goal of becoming learning
organizations. In so doing it would have taken the first step
toward reform of the national public service. But only the first
step!

The Director General for Higher Education (DGHE) must follow
suit. In all its dealings with both state and private higher
education institutions, the directorate must manifest
empowerment.

DGHE must no longer determine, decide, cajole and force
institutions into anything. Empowered or autonomous institutions
determine their own destinies, develop their own plans and make
their own decisions. DGHE's roles must change and must be seen to
change. Like the ministry, DGHE must review its procedures, rules
and regulations with the objective of realigning them with new
directions of autonomy given by the minister.

DGHE must make itself more efficient and less bureaucratic if
it wants the institutions under it to be more efficient,
effective and less bureaucratic themselves. DGHE must also be
seen to be more efficient and less bureaucratic. Even simple and
seemingly inconsequential things must be addressed. Think of the
many bundles of reports written by people who spend hours and
hours preparing and producing them, only to be stored under the
stairs and in other DGHE areas, visible to anyone visiting the
DGHE.

If the reports are not going to be read, why ask for them? If
only three copies of a report are required why ask for seven? Not
only is it wasteful, but the writers of those reports are
extremely disappointed to see their unread reports lying around.

The writer is an international higher education consultant
living in Jakarta. The article is the author's personal opinion.