National Accreditation Body should not be resolved: Academics
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.