Higher Education Information System: Access Expands, Quality Remains Unequal
By 2025, Indonesia had 4,303 higher education institutions, but nearly half—precisely 49.36 per cent—were concentrated on Java Island, whilst the Maluku and Papua regions together hosted only 4.62 per cent of the total (Ministry of Higher Education, Science, and Technology, 2025). To bridge this inequality, the government launched SPADA Indonesia, a cross-campus online learning platform that allows students in the regions to take courses from other universities without having to leave town (Ministry of Higher Education, Science, and Technology, 2025). On paper, this sounds like an elegant solution to the decades-old problem of equalising the quality of higher education. Yet a more fundamental question rarely arises: does the availability of an automated information system mean it has succeeded in changing the quality of student learning in remote areas, or does it merely add another platform that is widely inaugurated but scarcely utilised to its full potential?
This question was actually answered long ago by classic theory in information systems. The success model formulated by DeLone and McLean emphasises that a system’s existence does not automatically mean it is successful; true success is only evident when system quality and information quality genuinely drive consistent use, user satisfaction, and ultimately provide tangible benefits for its users (DeLone & McLean, 1992). Within this framework, the question that should be asked of SPADA Indonesia is not “how many campuses are already connected”, but rather “how many students have genuinely been helped in their learning because of this platform”. As long as the second question never becomes the primary indicator, we risk celebrating an equalisation that is still illusory.
The Map of Inequality Masked by National Statistics
The unequal distribution of campuses is not merely a geographical figure; it is directly rooted in the institutional capacity to build adequate information systems. More than 95 per cent of higher education institutions in Indonesia are private, and most operate with far more limited budgets compared to large state universities (Badan Pusat Statistik, 2025). Small private campuses outside Java, which most need online learning system assistance, are precisely the ones that most often lack permanent IT staff, let alone the budget to build their own learning platforms. The government does provide a Collaborative Digital Learning Assistance Programme with funding of up to Rp60 million to encourage the implementation of cross-campus online learning (Ministry of Higher Education, Science, and Technology, 2025). Unfortunately, this scheme is competitive and limited in the number of recipients, so the most disadvantaged campuses often lose out in the proposal selection process to campuses that are already relatively digitally established.
As a result, a policy paradox emerges that is rarely recognised by the public: grants designed to close the gap actually risk widening it, because those with better administrative capacity and human resources tend to be more prepared to compile competitive proposals. Equalising the quality of higher education cannot rely solely on open competition mechanisms; it requires affirmative action that deliberately favours campuses in the most disadvantaged regions, not merely providing formally equal opportunities to parties that clearly do not start from an equal footing.
SIAKAD Is Not an LMS, Compliance Is Not Learning
Another issue that is rarely distinguished clearly is the fundamental difference between an academic information system for administrative purposes and an information system for learning itself. Most campuses in Indonesia, including those far from Java, already have an Academic Information System (SIAKAD) to manage study plan cards, grade cards, and mandatory reporting to the Higher Education Database via the neo feeder application. One provider of such platforms even claims an implementation success rate of up to 99 per cent across hundreds of institutions. However, this type of academic information system is fundamentally designed for administrative affairs and compliance reporting, not for improving the quality of the teaching and learning process itself.
A common mistake is to assume a campus is “digitally ready” because its academic information system runs smoothly, whereas an actual learning system—one that is interactive, supports automated evaluation, and generates data on student learning patterns—is something entirely different. Many small campuses spend their entire IT budget on meeting administrative reporting obligations, because failure to report to the database has direct consequences for accreditation status and the disbursement of operational assistance. Consequently, online learning systems that genuinely enhance the student learning experience often become the lowest priority, not because the campuses do not care, but because regulatory pressures direct their investments elsewhere.
SPADA as a Halfway Answer
SPADA Indonesia was actually designed to fill this gap in a fairly clever way: instead of forcing every small campus to build its own learning system from scratch, students simply take courses from other universities whose materials have undergone a quality assurance process, and their learning achievements are still recognised as part of their academic transcripts (Ministry of Higher Education, Science, and Technology, 2025). This is a far more realistic solution than expecting each of the more than four thousand higher education institutions to be able to build its own digital learning laboratory. The concept of sharing resources is sound, but its implementation remains a half-finished answer as long as the primary measure of success is the number of registered institutions rather than the actual improvement in learning quality for students in remote areas.