Education system needs changes

Education system needs changes

By Nirwan Idrus

This is the second of two articles on the Indonesian education
system.

JAKARTA (JP): Low salaries at state universities and
polytechnics force lecturers to moonlight, some even to the
extent that their permanent jobs become secondary and their
lecturing is delegated to their assistants.

Some of the assistants are merely eighth or ninth-semester
students on the same course.

Because lecturers, as civil servants, cannot be fired -- even
for nonperformance (see Iwan Pranoto, The Jakarta Post Sept. 7,
1998) -- the moonlighting continues unabated and at a great cost
to their customers, the paying students, and as a consequence to
the nation as a whole.

Elsewhere, lecturers are appointed in the first instance on
the basis of their qualifications and experience. Their
continuing employment is based on their performance, evaluated
annually through a performance appraisal. A nonperforming
lecturer is entitled to three warnings and only after these, if
there is no improvement in performance after appropriate help and
support, his/her employment can be terminated.

Some would pose the question of money. True, university
rectors and polytechnic directors as well as lecturers need to be
remunerated at the appropriate levels. Can Indonesia afford this?
It is a wrong question. The right question is: can Indonesia
afford "not" to do this?

It is actually a matter of priority. To date, there have been
loans, amounting to more than US$800 million, for Indonesia's
education system. To implement the changes at the 80 or so state
tertiary education institutions suggested in my article on
Tuesday -- better salaries and not making employees at state
institutions civil servants -- would need just a small fraction
of this amount, but the return on the investment would be many
times this figure.

If Indonesia is serious about globalization, then there is no
question of whether it can or cannot afford it. It is an
imperative of inestimable value for current and future
generations of Indonesians.

On the management side, the success of the changes will be
enhanced by the use of an appropriate management model. A rector
or director newly appointed under the new scheme will naturally
bring his/her own management style, but in order to ensure
consistent substance, the criteria for his/her selection must be
in accordance with the guidelines of a management model.

For example, in many tertiary institutions in Europe, the
European Foundation for Quality (EFQ) model is used. In brief,
this requires strong leadership qualities, good people
management, good policy and strategy and good resources as inputs
into the process. The monitored output includes not only customer
(students) satisfaction but also staff satisfaction, impacts on
society and business results.

In many countries, ministries of education have monitoring and
supporting roles to help "rehabilitate" tertiary institutions
which are unable to live within their means and as a result
continue to produce unacceptable business results.

Business results include the size of the return on investment
(ROI), the size of surplus at the end of the financial year, the
increase in the number of students during the year, the
effectiveness of the learning as evaluated by the students as
customers, the good perception of the institutions in the eyes of
the students, their parents, the industry, indirect customers and
stakeholders.

That is why the system has to change first. The model proposed
above will force the management of the institutions to begin to
look differently at its roles.

Without any doubt, there will be people who will cry: "Foul!,
You're taking away our academic freedom!"

To them, questions can be raised such as: "You had it and what
did you do with it? Did you come up with innovative ways of
teaching and learning? Did you come up with earth-shattering
research results? Did you publish in respectable international
journals? Did you run useful, purposeful technical discussions,
seminars and conferences where you were able to push your
academic freedom to the limit? Did you do anything else to put
your department, faculty and university at the forefront of
knowledge barriers?"

There is no prize for guessing what the answer might be. To be
blunt, the new system can do away with those types of people
anyway. One can be certain that advertisements for jobs at
universities and polytechnics in Indonesia will drag out
surprises from the woodwork, provided as has already been alluded
to above, a new system is brought in.

On the working period, the working hours of staff at state
universities and polytechnics in Indonesia -- from 7 a.m. to 2:30
p.m. -- are anachronistic. Even if the six or so hours per day
are fully effective, this equates to about 35 hours a week. On
average, an academic at an overseas university will spend 65 to
70 hours a week on the job, either carrying out research, writing
papers, preparing better lecturing materials and methods, or in
scheduled contact with students.

It is not known how many of the 35 hours per week are actually
effective. Clearly, even if they are all as effective as those of
foreign academics, we have already lost because we work half the
total hours they do.

As somebody once said: "Success is 99 percent perspiration and
1 percent inspiration." The time factor is therefore necessary
although not sufficient. Space does not allow a full argument on
changing the working hours of academic staff at Indonesian
universities and polytechnics. It suffices to say the more
quality time one gives to a problem or issue, the better is the
solution.

To the skeptics who say that the above will not work in
Indonesia, it can be said that this has already worked in, at
least, three higher education institutions in Indonesia, while
one large state university is piloting a modified scheme in one
of its faculties with better than expected results.

To come back to the question "Is the education system ready to
help Indonesians globalize?, the truthful answer is negative,
although, as argued on Tuesday, there are only four obstacles --
the appointments system, making academics civil servants, the
current management model, and the working hours -- to an
affirmative answer.

There are those who will argue that nothing can be done to
this foursome of impediments to globalization in Indonesia. This
is a normal "copout" -- an excuse for doing nothing. We all know
that when we do nothing, we achieve nothing. Nobody is not afraid
of stepping out of their comfortable cocoon, but the price is
extremely small to pay for the rewards that lie ahead. Can
Indonesia afford not to break out of that formidable-looking
front-gate?

The writer is a consultant on higher education and quality
management living in Jakarta. This article is a personal opinion.