Revitalizing higher education

Revitalizing higher education

By Freddy Kirana

JAKARTA (JP): Empowerment of institutions is essential for the
improvement of Indonesia's higher education system and practices.

Dr. Nirwan Idrus says in his two articles, RI education system
needs a revolution, printed in The Jakarta Post's Sept. 3 and
Sept. 4 editions that to improve the quality of education,
Indonesia should revamp its education system fundamentally
because it is not efficient and effective, and it cannot keep up
with the pace of the development of science and technology in a
rapidly changing world.

In fact his discussion is not on the education system but
merely on one aspect of education management -- empowerment, an
emerging issue in (business) management. What he is saying is
that bottom-up management would generate more favorable results
(creativity as he put it) in the fields of learning, teaching and
research. It is undeniably a novel idea.

A system of (education) management is far more complex than
leadership. Human resources, innovation, communications and many
other management functions and/or issues are also important.
Empowerment is indeed one of the issues or techniques to enhance
effectiveness, but it is not limited to effectiveness and
efficiency.

Is quality assurance a good example for Indonesia? Nirwan
argues that reform which encompasses fundamental changes of
management, tradition, customs and attitude, is a must because it
will improve "quality, efficiency, effectiveness and access".

This Total Quality Management (TQM) philosophy is in fact not
a new issue in either business management or academia. However,
the example drawn from Australia's Unified Higher Education
System or the National Unified System (NUS) in Higher Education
may be misleading.

As a consultant who has worked in Australia, Nirwan should
have been aware of the pros and cons of the NUS and Australia's
quality assurance issues. It is not surprising to find that many
Australian educators, experts and academics are not at all amused
by the idea of reform.

Debate on the real intention put forward by the federal
government (Australia's former minister of education, employment
and training, John Dawkins) is still raging -- should the reform
generate dollars or improve quality?

Many consider that the government arguing using a set of
nomenclatures derived from business lacks a shared discourse, and
that no evidence has shown that academic staff have become
excellent teachers or become keen researchers and that they have
fulfilled their roles.

It is true that Australian reform of higher education was
introduced at the time of the Australian economic crisis which
might be compared with what Indonesians are now experiencing. It
is also correct that it has generated income and employment and
better access for higher education both for Australians and
overseas students.

But there has been no evidence that quality, effectiveness and
efficiency have been achieved. Australian higher education is
more market driven, while the government keeps cutting funds for
institutions. Making the education system more market driven than
before the reform does not automatically constitute better
quality.

Quality assurance in fact has also brought a sort of
"unfairness" in the distribution of funds to the 36 universities
under the NUS, notably that all are government-funded. The
smaller and newer "Dawkinian" universities (named after the
former minister of education, employment and training, John
Dawkins) have to compete with the older big boys for pieces of an
ever decreasing pie.

The concepts of quality management, development, improvement
and a set of such related words have been in business management
textbooks for decades. Empowerment and re-engineering, for
example, are concepts and/or approaches employed to improve
management quality in an organization. These two concepts have
recently been trumpeted by management experts and scholars.

TQM and/or quality management, proposed by scholars like Dr.
Deming and Juran, normally set a number of requirements to be met
if fundamental changes are to occur in a business organization.
Continuous improvement is sought through the Plan-Do-Study-Act
(Design-Make-Sell-Test in service-redesign) cycling-model TQM, as
Deming asserts, can be also applied in service industries, such
as mail and education.

Deming's TQM emphasizes improvement of quality without
sacrificing improvement of productivity. In TQM, quality is a way
of life, (Deming 1986: Out of the Crisis, Quality, Productivity
and Competitive Position). The essence of total quality
management is in fact changing culture. Since changing culture is
a notorious activity, several things should be observed.

To implement TQM, there are, at least, 18 obligations to be
observed, including constancy of purpose, readiness to adopt a
new philosophy and cessation of dependence on mass inspection.

John P. Kotter (Leading Change, 1986, p. 102) points out there
are four barriers to empowerment in an organization: a formal
structure that makes it difficult to act, bosses that discourage
actions aimed at implementing the new vision, a lack of needed
skills undermining action, and personnel and information system
makes it difficult to act.

As indicated above, the empowerment ideas put forward by
Nirwan could possibly be achieved if the following are taken into
consideration:

* Establishing a sense of urgency is a must in the management
of change. From top management to staff in the government
(Ministry of Education and Culture) and from rectors to deans,
heads of departments, lecturers and researchers to non-academic
staff in universities. Complacency kills creativity, innovation
and quality.

* Discipline should be upheld. Empowerment implies greater
autonomy. In paternalistic cultures, autonomy and flexibility
should be carefully observed before they are given. Otherwise, a
class expected to become "creative" will turn out to be
"chaotic". For example, cheating may become prevalent.

* Strong leadership is required. Change can only take place
when there is a strong leader. In the case of tertiary students,
a student led by a good facilitator should enhance creativity.

* Communications between the facilitator and students must be
strengthened. If there is a problem, they should come together to
talk and try to solve the problem. Students should be given a say
what they have done, how they did it, what they liked and
disliked.

In a collective culture, this might be more possible. Since
power distance is significantly high in Indonesian culture, close
supervision is thus inevitable. Since students are probably not
used to being left alone, autonomy should be given step by step.

* Rewards are normally employed to influence one's performance
and satisfaction. Rewards are extrinsic motivation. Rewards can
be monetary or nonmonetary, ranging from a scholarship to a
certificate of achievement.

These are only a few points among the myriad ways to
empowering students, as well as academic and nonacademic staff.
An educational environment is certainly different from a
manufacturing company or a bank. In the process of developing
courses, its stake-holders should be involved. Probably the most
important customers are the students themselves.

Feedback from students should serve as a control mechanism
whether empowerment is successful or not. By the same token, such
an approach will prove to be more effective than just quality
assurance based or a panel of experts appointed by the government
to ensure that institutions have taken a sensible and responsible
approach to determining and improving quality.

Whatever is done to improve the higher education system and
practices, it should be noted that academic staff and nonacademic
staff should be paid adequately. This is a most essential tool in
boosting their motivation.

Perhaps a more focused study should be done on a specific
course. Are all Indonesian tertiary institutions' courses so bad
that they need a revolution?

The writer is an education consultant living in Jakarta.