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Public Money & Management
ISSN: 0954-0962 (Print) 1467-9302 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rpmm20
Understanding the institutional challenges and impacts of higher education reforms in Indonesia
Harun Harun, Setiyani Wardhaningtyas, Habib Zaman Khan, Yi An & Rahma Masdar
To cite this article: Harun Harun, Setiyani Wardhaningtyas, Habib Zaman Khan, Yi An & Rahma Masdar (2019): Understanding the institutional challenges and impacts of higher education reforms in Indonesia, Public Money & Management, DOI: 10.1080/09540962.2019.1627063
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09540962.2019.1627063
Published online: 09 Jul 2019.
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Understanding the institutional challenges and impacts of higher education reforms in Indonesia
Harun Haruna, Setiyani Wardhaningtyasb, Habib Zaman Khana, Yi Ancand Rahma Masdard
aUniversity of Canberra, Australia;bSemarang State University, Indonesia;cOcean University of China, China;dTadulako University, Indonesia
ABSTRACT
This paper contributes to the academic literature on policy-making at the global level by empirically showing the nature and institutional challenges of higher education reforms under NPM principles. The authors explain the key strategies adopted by Indonesia’s government and the problems it faced in reforming its higher education system. The overall result was negative. The Indonesian reforms will not bring about meaningful outcomes unless the existing institutions, and the environment in which they operate, are also reformed.
IMPACT
This paper offers new insights regarding the nature and impacts of higher education reforms in an emerging economy. The authors explain why positive outcomes from higher education reforms are difficult to achieve in developing economies, without reforming existing institutions such as the human resource systems and laws underpinning the operation of higher education. The paper has important insights for employers, government and university managers and academics in developing countries, including the importance of opening a nation’s university sector to international providers.
KEYWORDS
Higher education; Indonesia;
NPM; outcomes; university reforms
Background
Higher education now plays an important role in virtually all aspects of modern life. Most governments worldwide have reformed their policies and financial arrangements around higher education by opening up the sector to international practice and by implementing new public management (NPM) principles (Deem, 2003; Welch, 2011; Parker, 2013; Kallio & Grossi, 2017; Colasanti, Frondizi, &
Mequon, 2018) to try to make public universities more efficient (Colasanti et al., 2018). Higher education in both developed and developing countries has been strongly affected by the rise of a neoliberal political, economic and cultural agenda (Connell, 2013).
For developed economies, such as the USA, UK and Australia, the internationalization of higher education has created an opportunity for universities to deliver services on a global scale. For example, the USA in 2013 hosted more than 4.1 million international students—more than any other country. The other two popular destinations for international students—the UK and Australia— hosted 10% and 6%, respectively (Zong & Batalova, 2016). In recent years, the internationalization of higher education has contributed to economic growth in emerging and increasingly market-based economies such as Malaysia and Vietnam (Pie News, 2015).
However, recent studies have produced evidence that there have been negative consequences of these NPM-style reforms:
. A decline in quality of higher education services (Altbach, Reisberg, & Rumbley,2009).
. Excessive use offinancial and quantitative indicators in evaluating research quality (Kallio & Grossi,2017).
. Low teacher-to-student ratio (Parker,2013).
Scholars argue that such consequences are the outcomes of government policies that have reduced their financial support for the stock of human capital and forced universities to function as increasingly self-funded exporting agents (Parker, 2013; Narayan, Northcott, & Parker, 2017). However, few studies have investigated the impacts of NPM on higher education in emerging economies (Susanti, 2011; Rosser, 2016). This paper addresses this problem.
One of the main contributions of our paper to the academic literature and to policy-making at the global level is to empirically show the nature and institutional challenges of higher education and sequences of higher education reforms under NPM principles. The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: recent trends and gaps in the literature concerning NPM-style higher education reforms in developing nations;
research questions and methods; results and
© 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group https://doi.org/10.1080/09540962.2019.1627063
discussion; and conclusions and suggestions for additional research on this topic in the future.
Recent trends, literature gaps and rationale of the study
Conceptually, internationalization of higher education is the process of integrating an‘international, intercultural, and global dimension into the purpose, functions and delivery of post-higher secondary education’ (Knight, 2003). In practice, it drives the commercialization of research and education programmes and emphasizes competition to attract international students as a means of generating revenues, boosting national profile and prestige, and building an international reputation (Taskoh, 2014). The internationalization of higher education is a core element of NPM principles associated with institutional and regulatory reforms of public sector organizations (Massey,2018). Under NPM models, these institutions are driven to operate as profit-seeking firms and to adopt CEO-style executive leadership; output measurement and performance management; cost unbundling, shadow pricing and simulated ‘bottom lines’ in non-revenue areas; and customer focus and continuous self-evaluation (Marginson,2013, p. 355).
However, despite higher education reforms under NPM principles having the potential to encourage local universities to compete internationally, mainly due to the financialization (profit-orientation and financial efficiency) focus of government reforms, they can also lead to unintended outcomes which can impact the quality of higher education (Susanti, 2011). This is because the growth of managerialism has undermined academic democracy (power of central managers and deans rising; departmental decision-making declining; students redefined simply as customers—see Connell, 2013, p. 102). Because financial efficiency and responding to market forces constitute the core ‘mantra’ of these reforms, universities have dramatically expanded student enrolment and class sizes, academic staff teaching loads have increased and higher education providers have sometimes employed cheaper academic staff and abandoned low-priority teaching based on NPM principles (Altbach et al., 2009; Parker, 2013).
Christopher and Leung (2015) found that rising employmentflexibility and workload, as measured by a more inflexible performance management system, failed to consider academic values in Australia. Such consequences are not surprising given that the central aim of NPM-based policies is to reform institutions, systems, subjects and behaviours to render them instrumental for capital accumulation (Harvey,2005; Connell,2013).
Nevertheless, limited studies have specifically investigated how these reforms empirically affect the
behaviours and perspectives of people who are influenced by the reforms when they are implemented in a specific organization or institution.
As well, most of the data from research and case studies on higher education in emerging nations such as Indonesia reflects the views of key policy- makers in state-owned universities and government legislators (Bandur, 2013; Sutrisno & Pillay, 2013;
Mollet, 2013). However, it is equally important to understand the views of other stakeholders outside government and senior education policy-makers.
Research on developed economies (Altbach et al., 2009; Parker, 2013) has started to address this, however these studies are not readily applicable to to developing countries. For example, although Indonesian government policies and attitudes recognize the role that the internationalization of higher education can play for improving the quality of tertiary education institutions (Bandur, 2013), government programmes are limited to supporting Indonesian academics who undertake masters’ or doctoral programmes overseas. This means that signing a memorandum of understanding with another international institution for research and teaching collaboration and the establishment of dual programmes may be ‘good PR’, but has very limited benefits (Harun, 2011; Hill & Wie, 2012). Conversely, one of the key elements for the internationalization of higher education is the presence of supportive government policies which allow academics to be mobile and improve relationships between higher institutions within and between countries. A systematic investigation of what is occurring in Indonesia is required to understand these issues.
Research questions and methods
To address these issues, we had two main research questions:
. What key strategies have been undertaken by the Indonesian government to reform higher education?
. What are the key challenges to government strategies and how do these challenges affect the direction of a university when undertaking these reforms?
Our data were collected by analysing the current policies and rules for the higher education system in Indonesia; examining government policies on the internationalization of higher education; and interviewing higher education policy-makers at the national level and key officials and academics from a state-owned university (referred to here as ‘Alpha University’).
2 H. HARUN ET AL.
We interviewed 35 senior officials and academics.
Eight worked for Indonesia’s Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education (RISTEKDIKTI), and five worked for Indonesia’s National Development Planning Agency (BAPPENAS). The interviews aimed at capturing the nature of the government’s higher education policies and the challenges that have emerged. In addition, we interviewed nine senior officials who had responsibilities in academic, managerial, financial and partnership issues in a public university in Indonesia to understand the impacts of government policies on its operations.
Interviews were conducted in 2016 and 2017, during which time we interviewed 11 academic staff at the university and five parents of students who were members of the university board. The interviews varied from one hour to 90 minutes and were audio- recorded. Tables 1 and 2 describe the interviewees and the university studied.
Results and discussion
Economic and social contexts of higher education in Indonesia
Indonesia is regarded as having a promising economic future. The island nation is transitioning its economy from an agricultural driven by commodity exports to an industrial based economy which relies on industrial and service activities (WENR, 2019). Given that Indonesia is projected to be the 10th largest economy in the world with a GDP of US$1 trillion (in terms of purchasing power parity) in 2025, the country has a strategic interest in improving the quality of its higher education system (Australia DFAT, 2013; WENR, 2019). In 2010, there were 5.2 million students enrolled in higher education institutions and 55% of them were enrolled in private sector institutions (see Table 3). The total population of Indonesia in 2017 was 264 million. The gross enrolment ratio (GER) at the tertiary level in Indonesia (23% in 2011) is low compared to all BRIC economies except for India; however, the number of graduates in the country doubled between 2005 and 2012. By 2020, it is expected there will be around 8 million students enrolled in higher education (WENR, 2014).
Key reforms for the internationalization programmes for higher education
The Indonesian government’s commitment to the UN Millennium Development Goals is the cornerstone of the nation’s efforts to transform higher education so that it is competitive both regionally and internationally. Several strategies have been developed and these include: greater state government financial support for education; the introduction of business- style management practices for major state-owned universities; and the introduction of quality accreditation for higher education institutions. To support these measures, Law No. 9 was issued in 1999.
Increasedfinancial support for education
In response to public demand for more government support for education, the government revised the state constitution, which now requires the central government to allocate at least 20% of its annual budget to education. This provision includes support for teaching and research programmes at the tertiary level. The Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education launched a the ‘Higher Education Long Term Strategy’ programme, which recognized the importance of internationalization programmes as a means to benefit from the increasing to globalization of many industries (Bandur, 2013). These programmes include collaborative activities with international universities (for example Deakin University in Australia), internationalization of curricula; government scholarships to study abroad for government employees; and double degree programmes in a number of state-owned universities.
Greaterfinancial autonomy for state universities
Since 1999, the Indonesian government has employed some elements of NPM for state-owned universities following the issuance of Law No. 9 (Susanti, 2011).
Under this legislation, several major government-run universities were able to set the level of student fees and manage their own finances without government intervention. This measure was adopted in response to an IMF recommendation following the Asian financial crisis of 1997/1998 (Susanti, 2011). In addition, Law No. 9 established the basis for public Table 1.Description of interviewees.
Affiliation
Number of participants Indonesia’s Ministry of Research, Technology and
Higher Education
8 people Indonesia’s National Development Planning
Agency
5 people
Alpha University 7 senior academics
4 university managers 5 university board
members
Table 2.Alpha University description.
Key indicator
Year of establishment 1981
Number of students in 2017 26,079
Number of academics 1,135
Annual budget in 2015 US$60,000,000
Number of faculties 10
and private universities to be legal entities in their own right, with the autonomy to govern and operate in line with international practices. Several major universities have adopted this policy, including the Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB), Universitas Indonesia (UI), Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM), and the Institut Pertanian Bandung (IPB), to become state-owned legal institutions.
Introduction of state-controlled quality accreditation
Several years ago, the Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education introduced an accreditation system derived from international best practice (Hill &
Wie, 2010). The accreditation criteria included research and publication outputs of academic staff, and the length of time taken for students to complete their studies and obtain employment. There were three objectives:
. Providing assurance that accredited university institutions had met the quality standards set by the government.
. Encouraging universities to continuously improve and maintain high standards.
. Using the results of accreditation as a basis for considering the transfer of university credit to another institution.
These critical aspects of quality assurance meant that the Indonesian government could look at quality standards and benchmark to assess university funding and other assistance.
However, with a small and non-specialized staff, our case study‘Alpha University’, was unable to do much more than routine checks of accreditation compliance. The foundations of a credible regulatory framework had not been set up. Peer review mechanisms had not been developed, and the bureaucratic capacity to deliver arm’s-length assessments (as of 2017) did not exist (Kompas,2010).
It is also important to know that the accreditation system works under government oversight and does not take into account problems of bureaucracy, corruption and nepotism (Susanti,2011).
Institutional challenges and their outcomes While the Indonesian government has increased its financial support for higher education institutions, granted autonomy to state-funded universities, and adopted quality accreditation, the efforts have not been systematic. Government policies in this sector have been inconsistent and unfavourable in today’s global environment. Specifically, the reforms were undermined by not fully understanding what the implications would be and whether policy changes were actually effective. As a consequence, the nature of government regulations supporting the reforms and how they were implemented present a challenge to improving the quality of higher education institutions in Indonesia. This is indicated by:
. Uncontrolled increases in student fees charged by state universities which resulted in the abolition of Law No. 9/2009.
. The continued use of overly complicated immigration rules for academics and students.
. Inflexible human resource management (HRM) systems in all state-owned universities.
Uncontrolled increase in student fees and abolition of Law No. 9
After Law No. 9 granted state universities the autonomy to set students’fees, Indonesia’s major state universities started to set their fees based on commercial and market principles. Consequently, student fees were suddenly much higher compared to the period before the implementation of Law No. 9. For instance, in 2010, the University of Airlangga—a state-owned institution— charged 150 million Indonesian Rupiah (IDR), about US
$15,000, for a student to enrol in a specific class in the school of medicine. (According to our interviewees with academics, students were paying around US$400 in 2005 to 2009.) The 2010 fee did not include other contributions that ranged up to IDR800 million (US
$80,000) (Kompas, 2010). This trend applied to other major state universities such UI, UGM and ITB that charged very high fees particularly popular disciplines such as medical science, accounting and business (Kompas, 2010). Overall, these situations convey the message that the more that students can pay, the higher their chances of entering a special programme.
This is because students who want to enrol in a particular programme are not required to have high academic test results compared to those who enter the programme through a normal entry test (Kompas, 2010). Commenting on this situation, one professor of medicine stated:
I know this is the implication of the higher education reforms. I have many reports suggesting the quality of students enrolled in a specific class are poor compared Table 3.Key statistics on higher education in Indonesia (WENR,
2014).
Number of universities
53 public universities 400 private universities Number of students Tertiary level: 5,001,000
Secondary level: 19,976,000 Primary level: 30,342,000
Gross enrolment Tertiary level: 23%
Secondary level: 77%
Primary level: 118%
Literacy Adult (15 and older): 92.6%
Youth: (15–24): 99.5%
4 H. HARUN ET AL.
to their colleagues in the normal programme. This government policy has driven us to have students of two different qualities. This is the most worrying thing for me as a doctor.
The increase in university fees was beyond the ability of most families in Indonesia to pay, with a GDP per capita of US$3111 in 2010. In response and following pressure from many non-government organizations, the Constitutional Court of Indonesia abolished Law No. 9 in 2010. The court concluded that by allowing the provision of higher education on a user-cost basis, Law No. 9/2009 limited access to education, treating it as a private good, whereas under the country’s constitution, education is a public good guaranteed for everybody (Hill & Wie, 2012). The court argued that the decision does not reflect the current reality, that the poor are not well served by the higher education system.
However, many commentators have argued that the basis for the court’s decision is controversial and illustrates the ambivalence of influential opinions regarding market-based higher education policies (Hill & Wie, 2012, p. 245). The decision undermined the universities’autonomy and created uncertainty in the private sector universities (Gunawan,2010). There is no doubt, on one hand, that the decision potentially prevents Indonesia’s private sector and foreign universities from operating based on a cost footing in Indonesia. This assessment was supported by our interviewees at the national government level.
Complicated immigration rules
Another problem that undermines the Indonesian higher education reforms relates to the complicated process for foreign researchers and students to conduct research in Indonesia. Our interviewees at the National Development Planning Agency regarded the system as very confusing, complex, and unstandardized, as well as taking too long to complete. A report published by UGM in 2010 states that, despite the change in political regime in Indonesia, the bureaucracy still looks at foreign researchers with suspicion and does not trust the academic licensing process (UGM, 2010). Such bureaucratic barriers have led to a low level of interest by overseas students and researchers in conducting research in Indonesia (Menristek,2012).
Traditional and centralized HRM system
Indonesia has formally adopted decentralization policies for local governments and promised greater autonomy for universities, yet these changes have been hampered by the conservative HRM system operating in all state-owned universities. Currently, state universities are run along civil service lines (Hill
& Wie, 2012). McLeod (2006, p. 282) states that the current HRM system in government organizations and state-owned universities in Indonesia is very rigid, with the number of positions at each level in the hierarchy fixed according to a formula, rather in terms of the volume of work involved.
Given that academic and administrative staff are managed as civil servants, activities related to recruitment, promotion and remuneration systems of academics at all state-owned universities are still determined by the central government. Therefore, it is virtually impossible for Indonesian universities to attract international academics to apply for a permanent academic job in the country, unlike in neighbouring countries such as Singapore and Malaysia. Our interviewees at the Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education supported this conclusion:
It is our dream that international academics apply for a job in our universities as you can see in Singapore or Malaysia. If it happens it can strengthen the capacity of our universities. But it would not happen unless our human resource systems are changed.
Outcomes
The abolition of Law No. 9, complicated immigration rules and the use of a conservative HRM system across state-owned universities have isolated Indonesia’s university system internationally and discouraged the movement of faculty and students (Hill & Wie, 2012). The internationalized aspects of higher education in Indonesia still lag far behind Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam. For example, quality standards used at the tertiary level are well below global standards. Indonesian universities have also performed poorly in international university rankings. No Indonesian institutions were rated among the top 400 global universities or the top 100 Asian universities in 2013. The Shanghai Jiao Tong Ranking shows that no Indonesian universities secured any position among the global top 500 (WENR, 2014). Hill and Wie (2012) report that there were only 5,366 international students in 2007 in Indonesia, while Malaysia had about 48,000 international students in that year. Given more than 67% of Indonesia’s population is under the age of 25, this means that Indonesia has a substantial pool of potential international students (WENR,2019).
Another problem is that the quality of local graduates is poor when measured against the expected criteria for positions in international and national companies, particularly terms of management and communication skills. Indonesia is heading for a talent shortage, especially for high-level administrative and managerial jobs, which are expected to account for more than half of all
employment in Indonesia by 2020—up from 38%
today (2019). Indonesia is not producing enough graduates to fill these positions, and few of today’s graduates are sufficiently qualified (Boston Consulting Group, 2013). Indonesian companies face both talent quantity and quality issues at all levels in their organizations. A survey carried out by the British Council and DAAD Germany (2014) found that employers in 10 developing nations, including Malaysia, Turkey and Vietnam, believed that graduates from international (not local) universities were better job candidates. The two main reasons given were prestige and status of the foreign institution/education system; and the international outlook and multicultural experience of these graduates relative to graduates who had studied in their home country. This finding suggests that opening a nation’s university sector to international providers would not only benefit domestic students because they would have more access to international higher institutions, it would also support the long-term economic interests of developing nations. Indonesia must consider this approach because it is not producing the high-quality university graduates which employers demand.
Impact on Alpha University
This section presents our findings, which reflect the consequences of NPM-style government-imposed rules on universities.
Increase in sporadic and unstructured programmes
It is important to note that Alpha University is a state- owned institution which obtains most of its financial resources from the central government, particularly salaries and operating costs. This affects how university officials, senior academic representatives and academics function in this particular workplace.
Therefore, any instructions issued by the central government have an immediate effect on teaching, research and other university business in all faculties and departments. In recent years, the central government has introduced key initiatives that aim to improve academics’ performance as judged by international standards. Several programmes have been undertaken, including academic visits by university leaders and academic faculty members to overseas universities. The hope was that participants sent overseas will learn from international practices relating to teaching and research activities in developed nations such the US, Australia and the UK.
However, the programme has yet to produce any significant improvements in Alpha University’s performance. According to five interviewees who
worked at Alpha University, the programme was not well planned, and the university had to carry out the programme as an instruction from the central government. Basically, they just needed to spend the allocated budget. Therefore, prior to the international visits being conducted, the purpose of the programme was not properly articulated, what should be done during the visit was not detailed, and neither were the kind of negotiations expected to be held with an overseas hosting university. The dean of economics and business faculty asserted:
If we do not spend the budget as expected by the central government—it means our university fails to transform itself to be a better university. But…that there was no real significant outcome and it did not improve our number of publications.
Similar comments were also made by a senior professor in the university’s faculty of medical science and public health concerning the initiative to increase the number of internationally-recognized publications by academics. To support the programme, a number of seminars and workshops were hosted by the university. International academics were invited and were funded by the university. However, these seminars and workshops did not deliver significant advantages for the host university faculty members in terms of improving their publication performance. One professor argued that the programme would have been more beneficial if the money had been used instead to pay for subscriptions to international academic journals, and develop a centre that would help academics to write their papers in line with the expectations of international, refereed academic journals. The respondent contended:
I think it would be more beneficial if the resources used to invite international speakers for the event were used to fund a more meaningful way which is more sustainable for a long-term impact for our university’s performance.
Heavy administrative and managerial tasks for academics
As part of its efforts to obtain better accreditation, Alpha University has to comply with government policies and inflexible and old-fashioned rules relating to the accreditation process. The documents and reports required for accreditation are only understood by academics, so academics have to prepare them.
Academics therefore lose valuable hours during which they could have been doing research or writing for publication. For example, Alpha University has to manually and electronically prepare 82 documents and must pass 25 stages to accomplish an accreditation process set out by national
6 H. HARUN ET AL.
government regulations. The rector of Alpha University remarked:
We must prepare [multiple] documents when the accreditation takes place for all departments in this university. You know this policy applies to all public and private universities across the nation.
Ten participants stated that most accreditation requirement reports follow overseas universities’ report formats. Administrative personnel had little understanding about how to prepare such reports professionally. A senior academic stressed:
It is difficult for the clerical staff to understand and prepare these reports. We have to rely on academics to complete the reports.
A new academic staffmember, who just completed his PhD overseas, emphasized this problem by saying it was restricting his time developing research plans and research papers based on his PhD thesis:
I am stuck with this task. This must be prepared as the department requires accreditation, but the ways it is done hampers the real academic work of academics.
His concerns were backed up by four other academics.
Unproductive promotion model for academics As part of the Indonesian government’s efforts to improve the performance of academics to compete internationally, it introduced certification programmes in early 2010. Passing the accreditation enables an academic to be entitled for an additional 50% of the academic base salary. However, the accreditation process is complex. To pass the accreditation, an academic must sit an English language test such as IELS or TOEFL. This policy is mandatory for all academics even though a person may have already published academic papers in highly-ranked international refereed journals and been awarded a PhD degree from a university in an English-speaking nations such as the UK, Australia or the US. This model is not respected by Indonesian academic staff and not gained widespread acceptance. As a result, several academics at Alpha University have taken employment in overseas institutions.
Furthermore, three academics at the university have been working for multinational companies in Indonesia following the completion of their doctoral degrees.
One stated that the current promotion model damages state-owned (public) universities in Indonesia because many high-quality academics are more attracted to work in overseas universities or for multinational companies with less complicated bureaucratic systems. He stated:
I know hundreds of Indonesian academics who moved overseas in recent years because of the counter- productive human resource management system
used for academics across public universities. On the other hand, taxpayers have paid their programmes when they undertake their programmes overseas.
The respondent said that an English test or other tests should be part of the initial recruitment of academics.
The current arrangement is actually unnecessary and even contradicts accepted international practice. This finding is in line with the comment made by a senior government official in the Ministry of Education.
Specifically, the Indonesian Vice-President Jusuk Kalla contended recently that the main obstacle to advancing education in Indonesia is the bureaucracy around it. If the bureaucracy is not reduced, Kalla said, Indonesian education will never be equal to other countries (Tempo, 2017). This view was shared by some of our interviewees.
Conclusions and suggestions
Given that higher education is universally acknowledged as a key pillar in constructing the new
‘knowledge economies’ of the 21st century, many nations have undertaken NPM-based reforms of their universities’institutional arrangements and structures, funding models, curriculum development, teaching approaches, and HRM. Few studies have looked at the implications of these reforms for a university and mostly the work in this area has focused on what has happened in developed economies. This paper fills these gaps by answering two research questions relating to the strategies undertaken by Indonesia’s government to reform its higher education sector.
As explained, as part of its commitment to the UN Millennium Development Goals, the Indonesian government transformed its higher education sector to be competitive on a global level. These efforts have included the provision of 20% of the annual national budget for the education sector, the use of business-style management systems in state-owned universities, and a quality accreditation system applied to all universities.
These efforts have been unsystematic and government policies in this area have been seen as inconsistent and contrary to what is actually happening in the global environment. The outcomes of higher education reforms in Indonesia have been compounded by the government’s inability to replace the old-fashioned HRM system used in all state- owned universities and rigid immigration rules imposed on academics and students from overseas.
Our case study university (Alpha University) was only able to undertake sporadic and unstructured programmes in response to the instructions issued by the central government. These programmes have yet to create significant improvements to the university’s performance. The accreditation process has taken up much of the time of academics who are also required
to sit an English language proficiency test. A key problem discussed in this paper is the existing HRM system at Alpha University, which has undermined efforts to reform higher education and introduced an unrealistic package of reforms (for example promotions based on language ability, rather than subject matter expertise and academic leadership).
Our evidence shows that reforms will not bring about meaningful outcomes unless existing institutions and the environment in which they operate are also reformed.
The Indonesian government seems has not to have been concerned about whether its NPM-inspired higher education reforms have achieved their objectives. This could be because the government has not built the capacity to monitor reforms following the collapse of a military regime in 1998 that had been in place for more than three decades.
Massey (2018) argues that it may take a longer period for an emerging economy, such as Indonesia, to improve its capacity to balance deregulation for economic growth via higher education reforms. We argue these unexpected consequences of the higher education reforms in Indonesia simply reflected ‘the natural and brutal effects’of neoliberal policies across the globe that the only objective of all government efforts under the banner of NPM in higher education is to mobilize capital accumulation as predicted by Harvey (2005) and Connell (2013). This has been at the expense of academic, democratic and social values. Internationally, our study has provided a deeper understanding of the consequences of an NPM model being used to reform the structure, funding and HRM of higher education of an emerging economy.
Finally, referring to limitations, this study relies on a single case study, and it is therefore difficult to generalize the results. Future analyses should consider several case studies to enrich our understanding of higher education reforms in various institutions and locations within one country, and Indonesia would serve as a good location to explore this further because the region is undergoing massive economic changes. Further research could also compare the consequences of government reforms at public sector and private sector universities. Policy- makers and academics would then be better informed about the impacts of NPM reforms on higher education institutions and the solutions to the problems created such reforms. Nevertheless, this paper has important lessons for policy-makers in other emerging economies undertaking reforms in their higher education sector.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
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