Tyranny of Metrics at Universities

The term “metric tyranny” was first coined by Jerry Z. Muller in The Tyranny of Metrics, published in 2018. In it, Muller uncovers the practice of metric hegemony in various fields, such as schools, universities, medicine, military/police, social philanthropy, and foreign aid.

Muller’s work was important in two ways. First, he explains why the use of metrics is so popular in various educational and social issues. He reveals how metrics is used in various domains under various derivative policies, such as the work burden-performance rate, student performance and educational stakeholder satisfaction, and institutional rankings.

Second, Muller uses the provocative term “tyranny” to describe the practice. The term not only denotes an acute condition that deprives individuals of freedom and autonomy, but also describes the tense atmosphere in various institutional dimensions.

Muller's explanation prompted me to look at the current condition of higher education in Indonesia. He draws our curiosity to a series of educational policies that are based on metric standards drawn up by the higher education regime. As a regulated standard, it is imperative for the entire academic community to use metrics. It leaves no room for escap.

Also read:

> Opening Collaborative Learning Space

> Violence against Minorities and Human Rights Issues

PostNew Order, the higher education regime began to introduce accreditation policies as part of an academic control mechanism at all levels of study up to tertiary education. The policy on educational quality assurance has since been implemented as a new paradigm of higher education management. Quality assurance includes quality, autonomy, accountability, self-evaluation, and accreditation.

Higher education institutions must comply with a quality assurance process that has a very stringent set of standards and rules, including the accreditation mechanism. Accreditation is carried out through control and supervision of assessors, and refers to regulations, focuses on established norms, and generates quantitative metrics. Accreditation places higher education institutions at certain levels and strata in the eligibility standards.

Academic debate has often risen over qualitative performance versus quantitative measurements. Instead of improving an institution’s quality, the accreditation policy leaves universities trapped by quantification, with assessors, as representatives of the higher education regime, pushing them to simply comply with government standards and regulations.

A colleague once told me that while an appellate mechanism allowed challenging the accreditation results, they had not dared take it for fear that the accreditation score might be reduced from the previous assessment. Assessors seem to be a frightening state apparatus.

Academic debate has often risen over qualitative performance versus quantitative measurements.

This condition will continue in the next accreditation process. You can imagine that these fears seem to be setting in and the threats seem justified in being reproduced and even legitimized. State universities bear a psychological burden prior to preparing for accreditation. These preparations are an administrative burden, as they entail daily tasks up to a year ahead of the accreditation process.

Quantitative metrics are also seen in academic citation databases and journals, such as Scopus and Web of Science, which use the Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4 categories.

Each category has a quantitative explanation with an emphasis on ranking a scientific discipline. The lower the database’s Q category, the greater its influence and reputation. In addition to Scopus, domestic citation databases have adopted the SINTA system, or the Science and Technology Index, a web-based research platform built to measure the performance of researchers, institutions, and scientific journals.

Scientific journals assessed by the SINTA system are rated from SINTA 1 to SINTA 6, based on the number of citations and Google Scholar’s h-index, a ranking and citation index that is no less important and can weigh decisively on an assessment. National and international rankings also contribute to metric standardization.

The existence of global rating institutions, such as the QS World University Rankings and the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, strengthens the hegemony of metrics in higher education performance. All universities pursue and embrace them as part of the university management’s vision.

Why are metrics so popular in the realm of higher education? There are at least two important points. First, the established metrics standards are all based on quantitative figures that describe an institution’s performance. The use of quantitative figures is deemed easier for monitoring by managerialist universities. Standard metrics revolve over performance and managerialism.

Second, metrics standards are considered the most feasible to operate and rationally measurable among administrative staff. Countries find metrics standards effective in pursuing international standards and reputations. However, European countries, which have established academic quality, do not use metrics as a reference. Indonesia, with its ambitious projects that aim for international repute, is sticking to quantitative metrics.

On the flip side, the rigorous embrace of metrics has given rise to concerns about paradox. Sociologically, metrication is another way for the state to tightly monitor scholars. The state cannot physically or directly monitor scholars’ performance to such an extent, so it leaves room only for using quantitative metrics as a measurement tool.

Also read:

> Higher Education and Inequality

> Responsibility for Education

The social and humanitarian realm of academics has been simplified by metrics. Overwhelmed by the pressure of metrics, academics turn into robots of a quantification mechanism. Academics and administrative workers have lost their scholastic rationale as a result of hegemonic metrics.

This has also caused quasi-academia to grow stronger. Psychologically, academics often feel distressed, confused, and anxious amid these metrical pressures. They lose their authenticity as homo academicus (Pierre Bourdieu, 1984).

Technocratic administration

Administrative burdens and scourges also arise from the policy on lecture workloads, which requires that all documents related to lectures, researches, and community service activities be collected and verified each semester. All documents must be submitted to the university management.

The documents are then verified by assessors. Only with an assessor's approval through a series of quantitative metrics, will these documents be passed on to the university administration for processing.

Approval also means the disbursement of financial incentives. If the documents are incomplete or not approved by an assessor, there will be a delay in the financial incentives. Patrons often say that the incentives will be disbursed if the documents are complete and approved by an assessor. The policy leave it to assessors in defining the "life span" of a lecturer. A colleague complained about how faced the risk of being unable to go back to his hometown for the Idul Fitri celebrations because he had not yet received an assessor's signed approval.

Academics who are also state civil servants (ASN) must also fulfill their administrative obligations by complying with the ePUPNS employee registration system (simpeg), an electronic database of civil servants, and fill out MySAPK, an integrated digital application for civil servants. A civil servant lecturer thus has obligations to both the university administration as an academic and to government employee administration as a civil servant. These administrative obligations are inseparable.

The most prominent metrication at present is the policy on key performance indicators (KPIs). Universities are busy meeting KPI standards as a measurement of a higher institution’s performance, which takes priority. There are eight KPI standards under the higher education regime’s policy to determine funding for state universities (PTN). Each PTN that succeeds in improving its performance or achieving its target based on the KPI standards is entitled to financial incentives.

Universities strive to improve their performance through the so-called Liga Kampus IKU (IKU campus league), which comprises all universities. They compete to reach the best ranking in the league, which urges the participation of all resident lecturers fulfill the standards. At times, they have to work overtime to gather together various documents. Many suffer distress from racing against the deadline for submitting documents.

University authorities continue to oversee the process of collecting administrative documents as a part of managerial control. Like a football competition, the IKU campus league hands out the final standings with the champions at the top and the others below, in the order of their rankings. The winning university then celebrates the achievement as a manifestation of fruitful efforts.

At the same time, a number of institutions are ready to change their status as legal university entities (PTN BH), the highest level a university in Indonesia can attain because they are deemed to be independent and autonomous, both in academic and nonacademic terms. Institutions that are struggling to become PTN BH implement various strategies to meet the eligibility requirements, which refer to administrative standards and indicators for academics, administration, human resources, and infrastructure.

Also read:

> Institutionalization of Research and Innovation in Higher Education for Downstreaming

These institutions prepare a working team to conduct a feasibility analysis. It is this team that will be involved in marathon meetings and in disseminating administrative tasks. If it succeeds in becoming a PTN BH, the university is seen to have made the achievement and the credit goes to the management. Day by day, technocracy is growing in policy commonization.

“Darkocrazy”

Universities seem to find it difficulty in getting out of this administrative trap. Administrative bureaucracy is inherent and ingrained in university management. In fact, deconstructing the technocratic administrative hegemony is a crucial step to take.

Prestigious foreign universities with world-class reputations have been built on a strong academic and research base with minimal bureaucratic and administrative burdens. They have developed rapidly because they have vast intellectual and academic space. They resist being enslaved by the administrative regimes that constantly dictate to them. The shadow of administrative technocracy has made Indonesian universities slow to grow and they lag far behind institutions abroad, especially in Asia.

Muller’s metrication theory led me to Peter Fleming's book, Dark Academia: How Universities Die (2021). I had the opportunity to review the Indonesian translation, titled Dark Academia: Matinya Perguruan Tinggi (2022). Fleming says sarcastically that a variety of symptoms, including Muller’s metrication theory, indicate that universities are dead today.

Fleming tries to uncover the dark side of higher education, which he has dubbed “darkocrazy”. However, what is more frightening is that a university’s demise is in line with the emergence of various paradoxes, from commercialization, corporatization, authoritarianism, bureaucratization, and to metrication. This is no longer merely a figment of the imagination, and is already palpable. Muller and Fleming have warned that the demise, not utopia, of academia is a reality.

DOK. RAKHMAT HIDAYAT

Rakhmat Hidayat

Rakhmat Hidayat, Sociologist at Jakarta State University; Visiting Professor at University of Seoul (UoS)

This article was translated by Musthofid.