International Higher Education, Fall 2001

Establishing a Quality Assurance System in Indonesia

M. K. Tadjudin
M. K. Tadjudin is chair of the National Accreditation Board for Higher Education, Jakarta, Indonesia. E-mail:<tajudin@dnet.net.id>.

Indonesia at present is experiencing a serious economic crisis, resulting in less funding for education. While it has become difficult to improve and expand education programs in Indonesia, the societal demand for higher quality output is increasing. In the current situation, Indonesia is trying to maintain the progress thus far achieved. The areas of reform that have been suggested for Indonesia—and other countries—include encouraging differentiation among institutions, providing incentives for public institutions to diversify sources of funding, redefining the role of government in higher education, and introducing policies explicitly designed to give priority to quality and equity objectives.

In operational terms this means that universities should have autonomy and practice internal quality control, while external quality control is performed by accreditation agencies. I will focus here primarily on the quality assurance of universities, especially the Indonesian experience in establishing a quality assurance system.

A New Paradigm
The quality of higher education can be controlled through internal control of academic programs, government regulations, market mechanisms, and accreditation. The quality of an institution of higher education is determined by the resources (human and material), the learning-teaching process, and the quality of its products (graduates, research, and service). Basically, accreditation of an institution involves the evaluation of these three aspects.

At present, higher education policy in Indonesia is aimed at improving quality by focusing on relevance, academic atmosphere, institutional management, sustainability, and efficiency. Known by its acronym, RAISE, this policy was aided by a new paradigm in higher education management—one aimed at quality enhancement through increasing autonomy, improving accountability, periodic self-evaluation, and accreditation.

As part of the implementation of the new paradigm, a 20-member National Accreditation Board for Higher Education (NAB) was established in 1994 to evaluate study programs in higher education. At first, board members acted also as the reviewer; however, since 1999 review is takes place through peer review, while the board acts only as policymaker and supervisor. In the beginning, the board was a unit operating under the director general of higher education (DGHE), but since 1998 the board has functioned as an independent unit directly under the minister of national education. Because of government regulations, the budget still goes through the DGHE. A proposal to corporatize the board is still under review by the government.

The accreditation system is based on program accreditation. Due to technical difficulties the first round of accreditation involved primarily the evaluation of human and material resources and not all programs were visited. In the future, in line with the new paradigm in education, which is oriented to student learning processes and outcomes, more weight will be placed on outcomes and learning processes than on resources; since 1999, all programs have been visited. The management of the accreditation agency was also changed to provide an emphasis on peer review, transparency, accountability, and cooperation with other national and international accreditation agencies and professional organizations. The new policy was applied first to graduate programs. Under the new system, instead of being required to fill out forms and submit requested materials, programs are asked to compile portfolios in which they are free to report what they consider to be the important and necessary aspects, including documentation. At the end, site visits will verify the portfolios submitted.

Challenges for Quality Assurance
Quality assurance and accreditation are new concepts for many in academia in Indonesia. The concept that the professor knows best and should be in control prevailed. For its part, the public is also not much concerned with issues of quality. Most people just want to get a degree and hopefully a good job, preferably in the bureaucracy. This means that market mechanisms for quality control in higher education do not work in Indonesia. People are not looking for the best programs, but rather for programs that will allow them to obtain a degree as fast as possible. When accreditation was introduced in Indonesia, many state universities—especially the older ones—believed they had no need for accreditation as they were already good institutions, maybe the best in the country. Furthermore, many students at universities that did not pass their accreditation reviews protested, saying that accreditation stopped them from getting a degree. It was in this atmosphere that the NAB began its work.

The first challenge for establishing an accreditation body in Indonesia was to establish a team of professionals in accreditation work. The number of qualified reviewers was limited, and those who were qualified were already overburdened with other duties. Thus, a priority was to train reviewers for accreditation work. The second challenge has been to develop a system and the instruments for accreditation. Due to the constraints encountered and inadequate funding, it was decided to do accreditation of study programs instead of institutions. In Indonesia there are almost 10,000 study programs—of which 25 percent are diploma programs, 67 percent undergraduate programs, 4 percent master’s programs, 2 percent doctoral programs, and 2 percent graduate diploma or specialist programs. Because of the huge number of programs, priority was given to undergraduate programs. In 1998 accreditation of master’s programs started, and 366 programs were reviewed. Accreditation of some diploma and of doctoral programs will start in 2001.

After the system and instruments were developed, invitations for accreditation were sent out. However, only 1,357 study programs submitted the required forms. In fiscal year 1997/1998 another batch of 1,469 study programs responded. This means that in the first four years only 2,826 or about 30 percent of all registered programs were reviewed, all of which were undergraduate programs. Because of the shortage of funds, site visits could not be conducted properly. Only those programs that had an A or B rating in the desk evaluation phase were visited. In fiscal year 1999, due to financial difficulties only 38 programs could be reviewed. Since late 1999 the universities have been asked to contribute a nominal accreditation fee. This contribution and the budget obtained from the government made it possible to do site visits to all institutions, so that in 2000 the number of programs reviewed rose to 1,964. By the end of 2000 a total of 4,925 undergraduate programs had been reviewed—of which 9.1 percent got an A (excellent) rating, 44.8 percent a B (good), 38.9 percent a C (satisfactory), and 7.2 percent a D or failing. Of the 366 master’s programs reviewed, 70.2 percent got an excellent rating, 26.8 percent satisfactory, and 0.3 percent (1 program) failed.

Because of difficulties in funding, the duration of site visits had to be shortened, causing some inaccuracies and distortion of the results. The weighting in scoring also caused some distortion, because of an overemphasis on inputs over outcomes and process. However, accreditation is considered the right way to promote quality control in education, as it pushes the universities to establish internal quality control mechanisms to attain a better quality in education.

Future Plans
As a new and foreign concept, accreditation was at first received critically, not only within higher education circles but also among students, as it was perceived as something that hampered their progress. With the new emphasis on quality through improvements in relevance and efficiency, the emphasis will also be changed from input to outcomes and processes. The paradigm of accreditation management will also change to professionalism, transparency, accountability, and cooperation with other national and international accreditation agencies and professional organizations, for better quality assurance and accuracy.

Indonesia is a large archipelago, as large as the continental United States, with 17,000 islands. We believe that the present accreditation system is too costly to maintain. Thus, plans are being made to change to institutional accreditation for selected institutions, by giving those institutions a "self-accrediting" status. These institutions will do internal accreditation of their own programs. The selection will be based on the quality of the existing programs and the existence of a good internal quality assurance system. This will decrease the burden on program accreditation performed by the NAB, without jeopardizing quality assurance.

Establishing accreditation in developing countries is difficult, but in a time of economic crisis the role of accreditation is even more critical to sustain the progress thus far achieved and to make universities a credible moral force in the nation.