Complete autonomy versus university accountability

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.