Striking balance between financial need and fairness

Striking balance between financial need and fairness

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

Several leading state-run universities have finally embarked on a bold, forward looking but controversial step towards self- reliance in finance, with a launch of a new selection system for students at undergraduate level.

The new policy, designed as a cure to serious financial difficulties, was the brain child of top-notch, state-run universities and institutes. The financial problems deteriorated after the government drastically slashed budget allocations for education in the wake of the financial crisis in 1997, which sent Indonesia's economy to near collapse.

Experts have said that educational institutions, including higher education institutions, must address this crucial financial issue that had shackled their development in order to grow into a healthy organization.

Making state-run universities and institutes self-reliant in finance, which automatically translates into independence in managing their own affairs, was not imaginable in the past as Soeharto's regime imposed tight controls on strategic institutions deemed as a potential breeding ground for anti- government movements.

But since the reform era, which evolved after the downfall of Soeharto in 1998, higher education has enjoyed greater freedom. The corporate change gained speed last year after the Ministry of Education issued a policy, which led to a change in status of four leading state-run universities and institutes into state- owned incorporated entities, as part of a pilot project to make state-run higher education self-reliant financially.

The four institutions are the University of Indonesia (UI) in Jakarta, Gadjah Mada University (Gama) in Yogyakarta, Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) and the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB) -- all regarded as flag carriers for the 45 state-run and 1,846 privately-owned higher learning institutions in the country.

In line with the new policy, the four institutions have initiated several changes, albeit slow and not dramatic. The changes included the election of members Wali Amanah, a local badge for curators, the direct election of rectors and the establishment of an academic audit agency (BAA).

The other objective of this corporate change is to make state- run institutions more accountable to their stakeholders -- students, the government and the community as the end-users of their outputs amid concerns over the deteriorating quality of Indonesia's educational institutions.

The steps taken by UI, ITB, Gama and the Semarang-based Diponegoro University (Undip) to open the new selection system for students at the undergraduate level to generate their originally earned income should be viewed from this perspective.

Under the new scheme courses offered to students at undergraduate level can now be categorized into three -- "regular", "non-regular" and "extension". Each category carries different financial obligations.

UI set an entrance fee of between Rp 25 million (US$3.100) and Rp 75 million for students enrolled in the special program called Program Prestasi dan Minat Mandiri (self reliant program for achievement and interest), specially designed for students from the families of upper middle and high income earners. The lowest rate is set for those taking social sciences and the highest payments for those taking medicines. The school fee for these special students at UI is set Rp 7.5 million ($950) per semester against Rp 475,000 paid by a regular student accepted through the usual selection system.

ITB set an entrance fee of Rp 45 million for a non-regular student and a school fee of Rp 3.6 million per annum, while Undip in Central Java, collected the highest entrance fee of between Rp 15 million and Rp 150 million per student for the special program.

UI, ITB, Gama and Undip differ in the way they select prospective students who enroll at this special programs and the quota of seats allocated for the "rich" students. UI, for example, selected the prospective students for the special program through the normal entrance tests with a total number of seats of 600 or 20 percent of 3,000 spaces available, while Undip reserved 40 seats or 2 percent of 3,304 students it will accept in 2003. Undip imposed no entrance test for its special students. Gama held a separate entrance test for 32 "non-regular" students, while ITB organized the program for non-regular students in cooperation with Bank Niaga.

Executives of the universities said the funds received from the non-regular students would be used to cover operational costs, including to raise salaries of lecturers and administrative staff, which are low compared to financial rewards received by professionals at private firms or multinational companies. The salary of a professor with experience at a state- run university is around Rp 2.8 million (US$380) per month.

Up to now the universities have yet to unveil how they will organize courses for the "few and privileged" students. Also conspicuously absent was an explanation of how the universities will raise standards of education amid public concerns about the standards and organizational practices at state-run higher education.

The experience of the writer studying at the graduate program at a leading state-run university a few years back showed that students of the regular program, although not perfectly analogous with the problems at undergraduate level, felt they were discriminated against by lecturers and administrative staff against students of the non-regular executive programs in view of treatment and attention. Students of regular programs also complained they were unfairly treated by lecturers, who were more generous in giving marks to students from executive programs.

These allegations have not been validated yet, but it is only natural for lecturers as human beings -- if the claims were true -- to pay more attention to students of the executive programs, who pay them more.

This must be anticipated by university administrators as the public now becomes more critical, demanding accountability on almost anything.

So in order to make this new scheme successful and avoid unnecessary problems, each appointed university must design the selection system for aspiring students for this new program as rigorously, transparently and as cleanly as possible, and ensure that its implementation is not done at the expense of the teaching process of the old regular program.

Second, the new scheme must promote fairness and justice so that it does not aggravate social jealousy in Indonesia's diverse community. Until now bright students from the majority placed high hopes in entering state-run universities and institutes due to their limited financial resources.

Third, strike a balance between the urge to earn a new source of funding and the commitment to promote the quality of education through concrete programs.