Leading universities initiate reforms

Leading universities initiate reforms

Ardimas Sasdi, Staff Writer, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta,
ardimas@thejakartapost.com

As part of the long-awaited initiative expected to begin the
process of reforming higher education, large state universities
have established academic quality assurance mechanisms to help
improve the quality of their institutions.

The launch of the Audit Academic Agency (BAA) without much
fanfare last year by the University of Indonesia in Jakarta,
Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta and the Bandung Institute of
Technology in West Java, demonstrated the determination of the
administrators of those institutions to provide a better
education.

This is encouraging, particularly given the public concern
over the deteriorating quality of national education, especially
at the university level, and calls on the government to take
concrete measures to bring university graduates up to the same
level as their peers from foreign universities, so they can
compete at the regional and international level.

The tasks of the audit agency will include helping the
universities accomplish their main missions of teaching, research
and community service, by laying down ground rules and criteria
for quality assurance.

However, the scope of the duties of the agency is wider than
that of the National Accreditation Body at the Ministry of
National Education, which ranks state and private universities,
because it can make recommendations to rectors on the management,
opening, merger and closing of certain programs.

The establishment of the audit agency, the concept of which is
new to many involved in higher education here, was inspired by
the success of large universities in developed countries, in
maintaining and improving the quality of their graduates.

The concept of an audit agency dates back to the 1990s, when
universities in the U.S. and Europe saw the urgency of building
effective control assurance mechanisms like the ones in
businesses, where the quality of products can be measured
accurately based on a set of fixed criteria.

The University of Indonesia placed a big burden on the agency,
established in mid-2002, as seen from the qualification of its
senior lecturers from almost all departments. The agency is
directly responsible to the rector.

The agency has the flexibility to carry out its tasks, such as
forming ad hoc committees to collect and analyze data.

The results of the agency's reports, which focus on the
process of transferring knowledge from lecturers to students,
were used by the universities to make improvements as part of
their accountability to their stakeholders -- students, parents
and the community.

Amri Marzali, the current chairman of BAA at the University of
Indonesia, is optimistic the agency will be able to help the
university improve the quality of its graduates. But he admitted
that the road to achieving this goal would be long and bumpy,
citing budgetary constraints as one of the main problems.

The formation of the agency also entails a shift in the mind-
set of lecturers and administrators as the prime movers of the
university, from civil servants notorious for their lack of
professionalism to "true" professionals who have a strong
commitment to excel at their jobs.

The concept also demands a major review in the salary scale of
lecturers, which has been hampered by the bureaucratic procedures
regulating civil servants' wages.

A professor with more than 30 years teaching experience at
Airlangga University recently said he received only Rp 2.8
million (US$360) per month, compared to the between 5,000 and
6,000 Malaysian dollars received by senior lecturers in Malaysia
or the US$1,500 received by junior lecturers in South Korea.

The salaries of lecturers at private universities vary from
one institution to the next, but the amount is not much more
that what is received by lecturers at state universities.

Over the past few years, the educational sector has received
greater freedom in managerial and academic independence, thanks
to the reform era following the downfall of former president
Soeharto in 1998, but there has been no significant change in the
welfare of lecturers.

The changes in higher education have so far been superficial
and restricted to a shift in the status of some universities to
state-owned incorporated entities, part of a government pilot
project to make large state-run universities fully independent in
their finances and academic management by 2010. Some universities
now also have more of a say in the election of rectors, but the
final say on who will become rector still rests with the
government.

The universities also need to protect the students' rights
through the establishment of an Ombudsman Commission, which would
offer neutral assistance in situations where students feel they
have been treated unfairly or need help with procedural or
academic problems.

Universities also face the challenge of promoting transparency
in financial reports, to improve their image as centers of
excellence and to build a philanthropic tradition among the
people, as commonly found in many Western countries.

Most Indonesian universities do not compile financial
reports, and if they do they don't publish them in the media.

Donations from philanthropists could become a potentially
important source of income for universities, especially with the
smaller budget earmarked by the government and meager income from
tuition fees and grants.

The endeavor to improve the quality of higher education
through the introduction of professional management control and
quality assurance mechanisms, the upgrading of campus facilities
and an improved commitment to professionalism by lecturers must
be part of a holistic agenda aimed at making universities
financially healthy, so that they can hire the very best
lecturers and administrators.