Lecturers are not doing enough research: Experts

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesian lecturers are spending too much of their time lecturing and too little on research at the expense of their own academic quality.

Speakers at a seminar on the situation of Indonesian lecturers said universities and colleges should take some of the blame because they are burdening their staff with too many teaching assignments and are not encouraging them to do more research.

"Lecturers hardly have time for research," Soemarmo Markam, a professor of medicine at the University of Indonesia, told the seminar on Wednesday, which was organized by Atmajaya University.

Soemarmo said the promotions of lecturers at universities also depends on the amount of research they carry out, not just on their lecturing capability.

Iwan Kurniawan, an Atmajaya University staff lecturer, said that the college authorities could rectify the situation because they are the ones who give out lecturing and research assignments. "Don't force a lecturer to teach too many teaching assignments because teaching takes a lot of time and there is nothing left for anything else."

Iwan said that the college authorities should allow their faculty to choose what they want to do, whether to become a teacher or a researcher, and they should also give credit points for research activities.

The seminar, held as part of the 22nd commemoration of Atmajaya University's research center, discussed how to apply the concept of Tridharma, the three principles of the university: to teach, to carry out work for society and to research.

Speakers at the seminar debated how much time a staff lecturer should allocate for each of these three factors, but most agreed that too little time is being expended on research at present.

There were arguments about the definition of the second principle, with many saying that teaching and researching are work for society.

Efficiency

Conny Semiawan, former rector of IKIP (teachers' training institute) in Jakarta, argued that staff lecturers should be able to allocate their time wisely between the three, with some overlapping for the sake of efficiency.

"Teaching need not be in a class. It could be done in a laboratory as they carry out their research," she said.

Irwanto, from Atmajaya's research center, said many lecturers are under tremendous pressure because they are expected to produce high quality students and also take on more teaching assignments to cover shortages in the teaching staff.

Conny said universities are doing a disservice to students if they do not carry out enough research.

The universities should instill in their students' minds that research is an important part of the academic world, she said.

She also called for improvement in the way the government assesses the performance of faculty, giving more weight to quality research papers.

"The regulation is good, but unfortunately the board who judges their performance tends to look at the quantity of research and not the quality of the papers," she said. (01)