Complete autonomy versus university accountability

By Iwan Pranoto

BANDUNG (JP): Many discriminatory policies proposed and applied nowadays are sugar-coated with politically correct words such as "proportional" and "representational". The present Indonesian education system is no exception. It camouflages its discriminatory policies under those two words.

The state university entrance system (UMPTN) we are now using has practiced discrimination to set a ceiling on the number of high-school students from a particular ethnic background to pursue their studies. In defending the practice, the authorities supporting the policy reason that the ceiling is necessary to proportionally represent actual distribution in society. So students of a certain ethnic background will not be over represented in state universities.

Therefore, in the case where a student from an "unfortunate" ethnic background scores higher than the passing grade, she or he is not guaranteed a place in the university. Because the passing grade applied to her or his ethnic group could be higher than to students of other ethnic backgrounds.

We have actually practiced a policy where we sacrifice equally qualified and, sometimes, better-qualified students of certain ethnic backgrounds. We deny a qualified student the right to continue her or his studies, only because she or he is from an "unfortunate" ethnic group. Not because she or he is academically incapable. Worse still, we have overtly done this for the sake of a questionable concept called "proportional justice".

Ironically, we have done this in an area in which we should be providing good examples, that is the essence of education.

We have to realize that the entrance system is really a zero- sum game. Therefore, when we set the ceiling for students of a certain ethnic background, we also set the floor for students of another ethnic background. It usually means that we have to lower the passing grade for these latter students. This implies we actually set preferential treatment based on ethnic considerations. It seems that we are sacrificing the quality of education for some concept far removed from education.

The above policy obviously contradicts the notion of guaranteeing everyone the right to become a member of academia without discrimination of any kind.

Seemingly, the concept called proportional "justice" has also been used in hiring teachers. Hence this practice also contradicts the freedoms we have been trying to develop in our academic community.

Unfortunately, it seems that this practice is considered to be fair. But is it? Does this concept really nurture a fair and democratic education environment?

The answer is no. First, this policy is morally wrong, because we should not label a student based on her or his ethnic background. And we should not see the student as a representative of her or his ethnicity. If we cannot separate the student as a whole person from her or his ethnic background, we are mimicking the Nuremberg laws (the 1935 Nazi party laws depriving Jews of German citizenship and forbidding Jews from marrying German citizens).

Second, if people cannot pursue their studies simply because of their ethnic background, how can we say the system is fair? Moreover, the exact description or definition of a certain ethnicity cannot be objectively stated. For example, no one can give a precise definition of what makes a person Javanese. Is it genetic or cultural traits? Ethnic characterizations are extremely vague in our society. So it is absurd to use the proportional system to discriminate based on ethnicity. In addition, we have to remember that being born in a certain ethnic group is not a matter of choice. It is unavoidable.

The proportional policy limiting students of certain ethnic groups may not be the only discrimination practice in state universities. There are also indications that a similar policy is used in medical specialization training programs, which are taken by medical doctors who want to continue their studies. There is the belief nowadays that medical doctors from a particular ethnic group are often denied specialist training in certain prestigious fields, such as pathology and surgery. I hope this belief is mistaken.

Such practices exist in education because the admission process at many institutions are neither transparent nor accountable. All admissions seem to happen behind closed doors and nobody can know for certain how they are run. In my opinion, we have to improve the accountability of the admissions systems.

This is easy to do. We first require institutions to announce the correct answers after exams. This will enable every student participating in the exams to check her or his answers with the correct ones. In this way students can predict their expected score.

When an institution announces the exam results, it must also declare the actual score of each participant. By so doing, each participant can see whether their estimated score matches the actual score. If not, the participant has the right to ask the institution to recheck her or his exam paper. Of course, the institution can charge students a fee for this. The institution would then send a photocopy of the rechecked exam papers to the participant.

At the announcement of the results, the institution has to announce the minimum score required to enter the institution. That is, each participant can see whether her or his score is high enough to enter the institution.

Only in this way can we increase the accountability of educational institutions.

Unfortunately some education policy makers seem to skip this kind of accountability when they talk about autonomy of educational institutions. Indeed, several days ago there was a discussion on the new government ruling regulating state universities that want to become more autonomous, and this has reportedly already been signed by the President.

The team presenting the information on the ruling said the current status of our state universities was "highly inefficient and had low accountability". Moreover, our state universities are difficult to develop academically and managerially, because there are strict controls. The team said: "The bureaucrats play God. There is no reproach or accountability for their actions." They said our state universities had low standards of quality. The team concluded that to improve the current status, we should adopt the rulings.

Now, how good is the proposed ruling? Upon studying the 13- page draft, everybody will be surprised to see that it does not touch on accountability problems. For example, it does not mention anything concerning practices conflicting with academic values, such as the discriminatory university admissions systems mentioned above. It touches on the subject of academic freedom only once, and only vaguely, stating, "The Academic Senate is assigned to formulate regulations on the practices of academic freedom, freedom of academic thought and expression, and scientific autonomy." That is all.

More surprisingly, academic freedom is not mentioned at all in the paragraph about the appointment of staff. It should be stated explicitly in the employment paragraph. Because in the absence of this, there is a lot of room for abuse of power to take place. Recall the case several years ago of a faculty member at the Bandung Institute of Technology, who presented a statement based on his research that conflicted with the interests of the executive body of the institute. The staff member faced expulsion. Fortunately, a number of senior staff members demanded that the executive body annul its decision.

Had the new regulation been there at that time, his contract with the university would possibly have been shortened. Or the executive body could have refused to extend his contract, giving a thousand irrelevant excuses. It would have been very easy to throw him out of the institution. Of course, the institution itself may have a body to handle the dispute if such abuses occur, but it cannot prevent abuses of power from happening in the first place.

A person involved in the team formulating the regulation reasoned that academic freedom is regulated by basic law. That is our fundamental misconception. We separate autonomy and academic freedom. We are longing for autonomy, but we only half-heartedly accept the academic culture with its inherent freedom. We all should realize that they are inseparable. They are two sides of a coin.

For instance, we will be disappointed if we expect the regulation to contain statements about accountability, such as providing information on the student admissions system or teacher hiring process to the public. The regulation seems to stress merely the autonomy of a university's financial management. It cares about the autonomy of universities to develop their academic culture. Also, it does not give sufficient attention to the autonomy of the development of academic norms.

Undoubtedly, state universities need to have the freedom to develop an academic culture more than they need a free bureaucracy or financial management. Therefore, the proposed ruling must be equipped with more elaborate and operational regulations, to enable academic culture to develop optimally in our state universities.

We only hope that the current director general of higher education, a position now held by a highly respected figure, can initiate public discourse and intellectual enlightenment on the regulation at the operational level. It is hoped that the planned operational regulation that will accompany the ruling will give sufficient attention to a free academic culture. In the long term, it may increase the accountability of our state universities, and the increased accountability may increase the quality of our universities.

The writer is a mathematics teacher living in Bandung.