Improving higher RI education

By A. Chaedar Alwasilah

BANDUNG (JP): Over 470,000 high school graduates took the university entrance tests this year, competing for some 74,000 seats at 45 public universities. This is heartening to hear during the crisis, given the increased needs for professional skills. Yet by international standards, our universities seem less competitive.

In its June 30 edition, Asiaweek magazine reported a survey of the leading universities in Asia. For the multidisciplinary schools category, University of Indonesia, Gadjah Mada University, Diponegoro University and Airlangga University ranked respectively at 61, 68, 73 and 75 among the 77 leading universities.

For the general and science schools category, Bandung Institute of Technology ranked 21st among the 39 leading institutes surveyed.

That five universities here are recognized among the best does bring pride, however, as a nation with a population of more than 200 million, we are clearly far behind.

Public or private university administrators should consider the nine variables evaluated in the survey: academic reputation, student selectivity, faculty resources, research, financial resources, ratio of students to academic staff members, percentage of graduate students to total students, citation in international journals, ratio of teachers to researchers and Internet bandwidth per student.

Centralized governance and educational policies have been blamed for creating the abyss between Java and outside Java. There are more than 1,300 public and private universities accommodating about 2.5 million students. The challenge is how to improve the quality of these institutions, bringing them closer to the five model universities.

By international standards, quality tertiary education is measurable and evident in the above nine variables. Considering the limited funds, priorities are essential, which is where "strategic planning" in developing higher education comes in.

Education experts say such planning covers a long-term period and tends to define major outcomes several years in advance. Among other things, it identifies directions and seeks to align the concerned institution with its environment to help assure long-term stability and survival. Strategic planning is also an ongoing process.

In the Indonesian context, first, improvement should account for geographical disparities, which has led to an increasing brain drain for the home provinces. It is therefore understandable that most regions are unprepared for regional autonomy. Improvement should hence be more of a priority in universities outside Java.

Second, improvement entails mobility in which researchers and lecturers move from one university to another for a fixed or indeterminate period. Mobility not only widens their general and social qualifications, but it also functions to share faculty resources and research, both of which constitute the spirit of universities.

Mobility would also induce institutional change and reduce the tension of divisive forces. This would lead to reborn universities becoming a melting pot of academic staff and students of various ethnic and religious backgrounds.

The motto of Bhineka Tunggal Ika (diversity in unity) has falsely been interpreted in educational policies of imposing uniformity at the cost of neglecting diversity. Universities all over the regions should be empowered to establish their own distinguishing characteristics. Academic quality and reputation naturally develops based on one's own uniqueness rather than on imposed uniformity.

Distinguishing characteristics are essential for establishing a benchmark as a means of setting a competitive advantage.

Third, essential to higher education improvement is decentralization, to minimize the gap between universities and the local government. Under decentralization schemes, universities should function as an agent of social and cultural transformation within their own area first.

Universities should therefore regularly consult the local government when designing academic programs relevant to the job market available in the area.

Fourth, higher education improvement implies assurance of universities to prepare competitive graduates for the 21st century; strategic planning should thus anticipate emerging modes of learning.

Developing quality higher education should never be perceived as developing a few out of a hundred universities. Higher education should be made accessible for all citizens. And this is possible only when all universities receive equal attention from the government; when they are empowered to establish themselves, and when the provincial governments are recognized as potential partners.

The writer is a senior lecturer at the graduate school of Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia in Bandung, West Java.