Government to restrict management schools
Government to restrict management schools
JAKARTA (JP): The government plans to limit the growth of
business management courses to protect people from poor
education.
Suyono Yahya of the Office of the Coordinating Minister for
People's Welfare said yesterday that management courses offering
masters degrees had to comply with the Ministry of Education's
regulations on licensing, human resources and teaching
facilities.
He said low-quality doctoral programs in the United States
which cost between US$5,000 and $25,000 gave people "a degree
without substance". The students only had to attend three-month
academic programs and submit meager theses.
Kompas daily said that 10,000 of Indonesia's 19,000 masters
degree students were enrolled in management courses, called
Magister Managemen (MM). And 30 of the 50 licensed schools
offering the program were private.
The MM, open to anyone with an undergraduate degree, is a
government-recognized program which costs Rp 1.5 million (US$620)
-- the same as the tuition for many kindergartens in Jakarta.
But the program has been widely criticized as a way for civil
servants and senior military officers to further their careers
regardless of the quality of education.
Many schools are reported to offer MM programs despite their
licenses having been revoked by the Ministry of Education because
of failure to meet educational standards.
The standards include a ratio of one instructor to between 20
and 25 students, and that schools must have four doctoral
instructors and a rented building for classes which is not a
shop-house.
Licenses have been canceled because the schools operate with a
ratio of one instructor to more than 40 students, the doctoral
instructors are either retired or hired on a part-time basis or
classes are held in inadequate buildings.
Suyono said in a limited ministerial meeting yesterday that
the Ministry of Education and Culture's Link and Match program
had placed 200,000 vocational students with 35,000 enterprises
this year.
The meeting, led by Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare
Azwar Anas, also discussed the welfare of elderly citizens.
Indonesians' average life expectancy is now 62.7 years. Azwar
said that, by the end of the Sixth Five-year Development Plan in
2004, life expectancy would rise to 65.
He said 11.3 million people were aged 60 or more, and this was
expected to increase to 15.1 million by 2000.
National Elderly Day will fall on May 29 this year. The
country held its first elderly day last year. (01)