UGM adopts education quality assurance system

UGM adopts education quality assurance system

Sri Wahyuni, The Jakarta Post, Yogyakarta

In a bid to assure the public of the high quality of its
education, Yogyakarta's Gadjah Mada University (UGM) has recently
declared that it has fully and thoroughly implemented the
so-termed Quality Assurance System for
Higher Education (SPMPT).

"Quality assurance has become a world trend. It is
part of our public accountability. People demand
accountability from universities because they are managed and
run with public money," said Toni Atyanto Dharoko, UGM assistant
to the senior vice rector overseeing educational operations and
quality control, in a recent interview with The
Jakarta Post.

Providing quality assurance for a university,
Toni says, is a form of moral obligation to the public who need
to be certain that the university is providing education of a
consistently high standard.

"Without quality assurance, a university will
fail because people will just leave it behind,"
said Toni. He added that from a legal point of view,
Article 51 of Law No 20/2003 on the national education
system clearly mentions quality assurance as one of the elements
of educational evaluation.

Similarly, the Higher Education Long-Term Strategy (HELTS)
for2003 to 2010 requires that all Indonesian universities apply
quality assurance systems.

The Higher Education National Accreditation Body (BAN-PT) is
also expected to apply a new accreditation system for
tertiary education institutions. Accreditation will no longer be
awarded to a study program, but instead, to the university as
a whole.

"Therefore, quality assurance will be an important element to
be considered before the accreditation body declares a university
to be accredited," Toni said.

UGM started preparing its quality assurance system in 2001
when it became a permanent member of the ASEAN University Network
for Quality Assurance (UAN-QA), an institution under the ASEAN
Secretariat. The university established its Quality Assurance
Office in the same year.

By 2003, the quality assurance infrastructures had been set
up, including documentation, organizational structures, and
procedures for quality assurance for each school, department and
study program.

"We also conducted workshops on internal academic
quality audits; we currently have some 106
certified internal academic quality auditors,"
UGM rector Sofian Effendi said after declaring the
implementation of the quality assurance
system on Oct. 11.

The declaration essentially acknowledges
that quality higher education is the right of
every student and that every UGM lecturer is committed
to providing high quality teaching.

Yet, said Toni, the official
declaration did not mean that UGM had never thought
about quality and quality improvement before.

Previously, quality matters had not been formulated
systematically, were not well documented, and were poorly
implemented.

"What we are doing now is perfecting what was already there
and making it more systematic, better documented, and better
managed for the sake of transparency," Toni said.

In principle, said Toni, UGM's quality
assurance system was a systematic effort at
a continuous quality improvement in the university,
manifest in the form of a cycle of quality assurance activities.

Each cycle comprises seven components, namely standards,
implementation, monitoring, self-evaluation, internal audit,
corrective procedures, and quality improvement.

Each time a cycle is completed, another cycle begins, but
always with an improved, newly determined standard.

"So, hopefully, there will always be improvement,
even if only small, every time a cycle is completed," said
Toni, adding the Quality Assurance Office in this case
was tasked with evaluating all the quality assurance
activities of a cycle whose result would then be used
to improve the next cycle.

Toni said that after the quality assurance system had run for
a year, UGM would have useful empirical experience that it could
use to further improve the next cycle.

A Total Quality Culture System (TQCS) would endure that by the
year 2006, quality assurance would become routine, a part of the
culture and an accepted system.

"By that time the quality assurance system will no
longer be just a project, but something routine instead,"
he said, adding that the period 2001 through 2006 was the first
phase of the university's medium-term quality assurance program.