Source: Irwansyah
Author: Muhammad Wiega Permana
Interviewer: Muhammad Wiega Permana & Fuadil ‘Ulum
In recent times, Indonesian higher education institutions have been plagued by a succession of unpleasant issues. Some campuses have raised tuition fees, making it difficult for students. Additionally, there have been allegations of academic fraud committed by campus academics. These problems are not new in the academic world. In fact, they are not isolated phenomena but are intertwined with policies and shifts in the logic of higher education.
To address these issues, PUSKAPOL UI spoke with Irwansyah. Mas Jemi, as he is often called, is a lecturer in the Department of Political Science at the University of Indonesia, teaching Labor Politics and Industrial Relations. With Mas Jemi, this article will review higher education policies that have been in place for two decades in Indonesia and their impact on the decline in the quality of higher education, as well as the decrease in the welfare of campus workers, especially lecturers.
In recent times, higher education institutions have experienced a decline in quality and management. According to Mas Jemi, what socio-political situations actually triggered these issues?
These events were actually driven by the situation over the last one to two decades. Indonesia experienced a monetary crisis in 1998. This crisis significantly affected the state budget, including the education sector. In order to recover from the crisis, Indonesia signed a letter of intent with the IMF or International Monetary Fund as a lender to address the debt at that time. The three major components of that letter of intent were privatization, liberalization, and deregulation to reduce the burden on the government. From there, privatization encouraged the state to divest industries or sectors that should have received significant state investment, including the education sector.
This privatization changed the paradigm of higher education in Indonesia, which was previously very state-led, guided, and even controlled by the state, shifting towards a push for greater privatization, where universities were burdened with finding their own funding and so on. We once knew this as BHMN or State-Owned Legal Entities in 2000. Now, we know them as PTN BH or State Universities with Legal Entity Status. Ultimately, privatization gradually and evolutionarily transformed the style of universities from being very public to becoming more private, which has the effect of making university operations resemble those of corporations. Simply put, privatization absolves the state of its responsibility to fund education as a public good.
Simply put, privatization absolves the state of its responsibility to fund education as a public good – Irwansyah
Did this privatization ultimately trigger the decline in the quality and management of higher education?
That’s right. However, in reality, over the past two decades, the funds generated by universities’ independent fundraising efforts have also been minimal. In fact, universities are not entities that possess the capacity to engage in economic activities. When Indonesia decided to pursue this privatization, the comparison was with elite overseas campuses like Harvard and others, which actually have endowments. In the Indonesian context, education privatization has unfolded as market anarchism, in a chaotic manner. In fact, it is now creating consequences, one of which is the increase in tuition fees for students. Yet, education is a public commodity. This is actually difficult to implement because we have a mandate and constitution that ensures that students should not drop out of school due to lack of funds. However, various innovations were then created, one of the most extreme being online loans (pinjol). Meanwhile, in advanced capitalist countries, especially Europe and Australia, universities still receive grants from the state.
What is the impact of this privatization on lecturers?
In the context of lecturers, this privatization positions them like corporate workers who are constantly pursued with various targets, one of which is BKD or Lecturer Workload. In addition to BKD, there are other forms that make lecturers’ work increasingly heavy over time. Yet, lecturers’ time is already consumed by preparing and conducting lectures, grading, research, and community service. It is also not uncommon for lecturers to seek projects from third parties to generate income. In private universities, this is referred to as the 4th point of the Catur Darma (Four Pillars). For context, beyond basic wages, the state also provides lecturer certification or compensation. If one component is not met according to the required standards, then that compensation will not be paid.
This obligation to meet targets also encourages potential academic misconduct. For example, nowadays, for lecturers to become professors, they are required to publish in Scopus-indexed journals. This also encourages the proliferation of predatory journal industries and journal publication facilitation services, among others. As a result, many loopholes arise in the implementation of privatization for acts of misconduct. Another issue is that lecturers can now obtain university employee status, no longer predominantly civil servants (PNS) as before. However, the clarity of their wage status is also not given much thought. These lecturers’ basic wages are below the provincial minimum wage (UMP). This means that university employees’ salary status mimics that of civil servants. Yet, they are not actually civil servants. These are the loopholes for violations or policy abuses.
What is the impact of this on lecturer welfare?
Lecturer welfare is problematic. In fact, for decades in Indonesia, lecturers did not treat their work as their primary source of income. This is due to the small compensation available in the majority of educational institutions. People usually persist in being lecturers, in teaching, because they have a great passion or interest in a particular subject or discipline. That’s why being a lecturer used to be called a form of dedication. However, nowadays, the concept of dedication has become increasingly problematic due to high working hours, workload, and risks. Do not think that lecturers are not vulnerable to work-related illnesses, such as high stress levels and the effects of continuous monitor exposure. Moreover, there is no support for health matters, let alone mental health, or transportation and so on. So, these are all aspects that are not taken into account when people talk about lecturer welfare.
Lecturers in Indonesia are still imagined as individuals who are well-off both intellectually and materially. Lecturers are assumed to have no problems with issues considered fundamental to the general public. In fact, lecturers are often envisioned as people who should step in to solve the public’s problems because they are already abundant. However, in reality, it is now becoming increasingly clear that lecturers are just like other groups of workers. It’s just that, because such a perception has been formed for decades, lecturers have internalized this. Ultimately, most lecturers feel they are not workers. They feel they are like intellectuals in an ivory tower, free from material and labor problems.
However, in reality, it is now becoming increasingly clear that lecturers are just like other groups of workers – Irwansyah
What have academics done to respond to the issue of lecturer welfare?
One thing that has actually been done is to unionize through SPK or Campus Workers’ Unions. In fact, the awareness to view lecturers as workers has only emerged in recent years. The new, younger generation of lecturers is more exposed to information that in other countries, academic employment relationships must be regulated professionally, fairly, and justly. Many of them return from studying abroad and see comparisons of higher education practices in other countries. Ultimately, an awareness began to emerge to criticize existing practices and perceptions.
Furthermore, the rise of social media has also been a trigger. The formation of SPK was also accelerated by conversations in the social media world. Thus, academics from different campuses who previously did not know each other could tweet and respond to each other. Then, there were digital conversations, discussions, and deliberations. This then led to physical meetings in 2023 through the SPK founding congress. The mission of SPK is to advocate for the interests of lecturers, not only on issues of academic freedom but also on issues concerning lecturers as workers.
Regarding education quality, why is the economic autonomy granted not directly proportional to the improvement in education quality?
Previously, I cannot say that all higher education institutions have poor education quality. For the majority in Indonesia, there is no direct correlation between economic autonomy and academic quality. This is because privatization in Indonesia is not yet ready to be implemented by all universities. Even elite universities like UI, ITB, and UGM are still struggling to meet its demands. Ultimately, they conduct many experiments. Unfortunately, when many of these experiments fail, these failures are not accounted for to the broader stakeholders, namely the public. This happens because universities seem to follow corporations institutionally, one example being the formation of the MWA or Board of Trustees. If we analyze the MWA, the dominant public elements within it actually come from business circles. These individuals do not have a serious interest in the democratization and quality of education for the people. Student representatives also usually do not have an organic connection with students. They are not representatives from BEM (Student Executive Board) or other student organizations, but rather are chosen through separate elections where the individuals are not even close to the students. Moreover, their term of office is short. So, institutionally, there seems to be a space for democratization to control or maintain education quality, but in terms of political economy, the institution contains an imbalance of power that is extreme. Ultimately, the orientation is also extremely geared towards the survival of the university’s financial management budget, rather than accountability to society at large. So, if asked why it is not directly proportional to the trend of improving education quality, it is because public control is also weakening under privatization.
So, who benefits from this privatization? Well, certainly private institutions, in this case, companies or corporations. They gain greater access to higher education institutions than the public itself. Ultimately, corporations or those with vested interests will receive justification from higher education circles. For example, we often hear expert witnesses from universities for cases involving the public. Often, campuses still side more with corporations than with the people who experience cases such as land grabbing or violence. So, having a relationship with higher education institutions becomes important for the survival needs of corporations. This shows that corporations and the state have increasingly merged post-1998. This has become a new enemy or a new oppressor for academic freedom and campus democratization.
In closing, according to Mas Jemi, what are the challenges for academics when criticizing and pushing for change in the current system?
Actually, there are still many ongoing protests. However, with shorter study periods and increased education costs, all of this places a heavy burden on critical groups to maintain continuous oversight. Meanwhile, critical groups have not yet been able to institutionalize themselves to conduct strategic criticism. Moreover, the punitive regime today is increasingly complex. Punishment is not only carried out by the educational institution itself. There are various forms, one of which is the ITE Law. In the past, repression and censorship were directly led by the state. Now, it is dispersed or decentralized, but it can quickly punish or repress intellectuals.
Meanwhile, the existing system still provides loopholes for those who commit violations by manipulating mechanisms. In essence, repression today is more complex than during the New Order era. During the New Order, the target or ultimate responsibility for repression against democratization in higher education always fell to the state. Even during the New Order, despite authoritarianism, many in our higher education circles remained critical. In the past, UI rectors always protected democratic movements, even until the fall of Soeharto. However, post-Reformasi, precisely when the state seemed non-repressive, repressive practices are now delegated to these new apparatuses within the higher education institutions themselves. So the problem is that these changing times have led to the emergence of forms of repression and limitations in higher education that, unfortunately, have not yet been overcome.
However, post-Reformasi, precisely when the state seemed non-repressive, repressive practices are now delegated to these new apparatuses within the higher education institutions themselves – Irwansyah
