Benefits of Partnering with Foreign Universities

Kompas/DIDIE SW

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Last December, Vice President Jusuf Kalla announced the government\'s plan to ease higher education restrictions on foreign universities in Indonesia (Kompas, 21/12/2017).

Even though no details have been forthcoming, the news sparked reactions from Indonesian academia. Nearly every day, an article appears that warn of adverse consequences for local universities and the nation’s students if the state allowed foreign universities to enter the country’s higher education system.

The overreaction is difficult to understand, because the government\'s proposal is actually moderate and reasonable. According to the Research, Technology and Higher Education Ministry, the proposal currently being evaluated will limit the participation of foreign universities to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) programs, and would require them to partner with local universities. To date, no plans have emerged that would allow foreign universities to open branch campuses or make foreign direct investment (FDI) in Indonesia.

Comprehensive reform

Why is there a group of Indonesian academics who are so full of doubt as to the benefits of partnering with foreign universities? One fact that has emerged as a clear reason is the academic protectionism that has been practiced here, which has thus far hindered international cooperation between foreign and Indonesian universities. This barrier has led to the globally uncompetitive quality of our students, lecturers and universities.

According to the Survey of Adult Skills the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) conducted in 2016, the mathematics and literacy skills of Jakarta university graduates are not much different from those of junior high school students in Europe. Moreover, not a single national university has made it into the top 800 on the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2018 list. Only three of our universities are included among the top 500 of the QS World University Rankings. It will be very difficult for Indonesia to enter the competition in the new science-based global economy if the country is unable to improve the quality of its higher education.

Improving the quality of higher education is not an easy job. Comprehensive reform efforts are needed, such as improving institutional management, encouraging transparency, providing more detailed and up-to-date information on student learning outcomes, providing incentives to professors and lecturers to increase research outputs and integrating scientific progress into their teaching, tightening accreditation criteria, and strengthening the role of the business community and civil society in upgrading existing standards.

Could foreign universities play a role in reforming the nation’s higher education? According to history and practice in Indonesia and other Asian countries, there are many examples in which foreign universities have played a relatively small but effective role in improving the quality of foreign universities in those countries.

Foreign universities will not establish branch campuses. Besides being prohibited by the government, the universities themselves have no interest in doing so, as opening a branch campus requires huge initial investment. It is rare to find foreign universities that are willing to pursue such an undertaking without local government subsidies.

Importance of opening up

We can see from the experience of the Qatar government, which has lent great support to 15 foreign universities to open branches in that country, including renowned institutions such as Georgetown University and University College London. The Dubai International Academic City, for example, has attracted more than 20 international partners since it opened its doors in 2007. Funding from the Singapore government also played a vital role in establishing the Yale-NUS College, a liberal arts college formed in collaboration with the National University of Singapore.

Therefore, it can be concluded that, for political and economic reasons, establishing a branch campus is not a desirable option for foreign universities to operate in Indonesia. If the entry restrictions on foreign universities were relaxed, it is likely that both foreign and local universities could respond by establishing the most important academic teaching and research partnerships in Indonesia. With regard to government priorities, the areas most likely to benefit from such partnership opportunities will be the sciences and engineering.

An interesting example in ASEAN is the Higher Engineering Education Alliance Program (HEEAP) in Vietnam, a partnership between Vietnam\'s Ministry of Science and Technology, the United States’ Arizona State University, USAID and Intel Corporation. The HEEAP trained over 1,000 Vietnamese engineering lecturers and assisted in upgrading the curriculum at Vietnam’s national universities toward international accreditation. The program succeeded in improving the quality of teaching and research at Vietnamese universities and in strengthening the international profile of Arizona State University, which was already recognized as one of the most innovative universities in the United States.

Foreign and local universities can also collaborate in developing online course materials in the Indonesian language, especially in the fields of mathematics, science and technology. Online math courses, for example, allow students to learn at their own pace, and provide teachers with detailed information on student progress. Numerous studies have shown that well-designed digital learning programs can be more effective than face-to-face learning.

In this era of rapid technological change, it does not make sense for Indonesia to close itself off from global knowledge innovation. Partnerships with foreign universities will not solve all the problems higher education faces in Indonesia, but such partnerships have the potential to help local universities achieve better teaching and research standards and improve the quality of Indonesian university graduates.

Jonathan Pincus, President of Rajawali Foundation and Advisor at the Public Policy Transformation Center