National Accreditation Body should not be resolved: Academics

Debbie A. Lubis, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Academics urged the government on Monday to reform the National Accreditation Body (BAN) in a bid to maintain the quality of university graduates and to prevent the rampant practice of selling fake diplomas.

Adil Basuki Ahza, chairman of the Preparatory Committee of Autonomy Implementation in the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB), told The Jakarta Post that BAN was needed to control the quality of universities and to clamp down on the selling of diplomas.

"We still need BAN because it is an evaluation system that guarantees the continuous improvement of universities' quality and by so doing there will not be universities selling degrees," he said.

Adil was speaking on the sidelines of a hearing between senior officials of public and private universities and the House of Representatives Commission VI for human resources and religious affairs.

Adil said that BAN should be a single accountable unit like the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) that has an international standard of guidelines and fixed rules in making evaluations.

"Sometimes the government elects a person to be a BAN member just because he holds a professorship. But then it turns out that the professor fails to do his job because of a lack of capability," he said.

Adil said that the government must select an auditor based on his or her educational background, professionalism and capability to make an objective analysis.

The government allowed private universities last year to manage their own final examinations and issue their own degrees. Previously they were to report to the Coordinating Body for Private Colleges (Kopertis) to join the national examination or legalize the degree.

R. Djoko Soemadijo, the chairman of the Indonesian Private Universities Association, told The Post that the policy would have a double impact.

Private universities wishing to maintain their good reputation would exercise prudence in creating their own exams and issuing diplomas, he said.

"They try to raise its quality because they believe if their graduates are of a low quality, the public will not trust them anymore," said Djoko, who is also the rector of Narotama University in Surabaya, East Java.

However, he said that some private universities would benefit from the new liberty by shortening school terms or lowering school fees to entice the public into getting a diploma more easily.

"There is a college whose monthly fee is only Rp 100,000 and the students get a diploma faster than going the usual route. But I bet it will soon go bankrupt," Djoko said.

He said that BAN could control cheating through rulings that require universities to report their graduates, including their first enrollment in every semester.

Djoko, however, voiced private universities' concern over the independence of BAN by saying that the accreditation body should be free of collusive practices.

"We cannot do anything if BAN members are still civil servants (under the Ministry of Education) because they wield power that is impossible to subdue. What is happening now in the 'market' are 'crimes without victims', because both parties profit," he said.

Djoko said that private universities sometimes have to bargain for a "price" of accreditation with errant officials from the accreditation body if they wished to get good credit for their university.

"I urge the government then to make a "fixed" price for the credit if it is the only way to get accreditation so we will all be treated the same," he said.

Djoko added that the government must certify that the auditor has credible credentials since his association's members sometimes had difficulty with them.

"Our friends from East Java also reported that their auditors sometimes asked to stay in star-rated hotels if the private universities wanted accreditation," he said.