JAKARTA: The government recently established the University of the Republic Indonesia (URI), a move met with doubt amid a lack of clarity surrounding the formation of the higher education institution.
News about the university’s establishment was conveyed on July 22, when President Prabowo Subianto inaugurated Deputy Defence Minister Donny Ermawan Taufanto and Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) professor Yos Sunitiyoso as URI governor and deputy governor, respectively.
The URI, also called the National Civic Education Body, is tasked with producing “Indonesia’s future leaders”, reflecting the President’s “deep commitment to developing human resources, especially Indonesia’s future leaders”, Donny said after his inauguration.
He added that the URI would train civil servants and state-owned enterprise (SOE) employees, while also overseeing three state bodies: the State Administration Institute (LAN), a management body overseeing Prabowo’s Garuda Schools programme, and a higher education management body.
The URI was modelled after France’s Institut national du service public (INSP), Donny said, referring to an elite institution that trained many French senior public officials. It would offer academic programmes equivalent to those at other universities, with graduates earning bachelor to doctoral degrees.
While the university’s list of schools has yet to be announced, the URI’s website states it will not offer conventional programmes, such as medicine, engineering, law and economics. As of Sunday (July 26), the university’s website uri.ac.id could not be accessed.
Donny added that the URI’s programme would emphasise nationalism and patriotism: “We will educate students to build their character and way of thinking, and equip them with managerial skills.”
The URI’s main campus will be built in Bogor, West Java, with further plans to establish 10 campuses and recruit lecturers from Indonesia and abroad. The university will be funded through the state budget.
Higher Education, Science and Technology Minister Brian Yuliarto separately said on July 23 that plans for 10 URI campuses were still under review, while asserting that the new university would not oversee all higher education institutions in Indonesia, as reported by Antara.
While many details about the university still remain unexplained, the URI’s formation has been met with criticism.
State administration expert Eko Prasojo argued placing the LAN under the URI would conflict with the State Civil Apparatus Law, which mandates that the agency to be placed under the Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform Ministry.
Eko, a former deputy administrative and bureaucratic reform minister, also questioned the absence of presidential regulation on the URI’s establishment, which typically serves as the basis of new institutions.
Donny and Yos were appointed through a presidential decree.
“If the existence of a presidential regulation on the institution is questionable, the presidential decree about the appointment of its leaders is also flawed,” Eko said on Saturday, adding the regulation drafting the URI’s establishment “appears to lack transparency”.
Education experts Jejen Musfah of Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University (UIN) Jakarta described the URI as another policy introduced without adequate study, while not resolving longstanding education issues such as welfare of teachers and lecturers.
He also questioned the urgency of launching the institution amid the government’s austerity measures, arguing officials should focus on improving more than 2,800 established universities.
Calling the URI a university while it is led by a governor and not a rector is also misleading, according to education policy expert Cecep Darmawan of the Indonesian University of Education (UPI).
Its mission to train public officials also more closely resembles that of LAN or similar training institutions than universities, he went on to say. “
There needs to be clarity about where the URI fits in the state structure and its roles, functions, authority and responsibilities,” Cecep said on Saturday.
“It gives an impression that it appeared out of thin air without undergoing public consultation.” Donny and Yos’ inauguration also caught by by surprise House of Representatives Commission X, which oversees education affairs.
Commission X chair Hetifah Sjaifudan said on Sunday lawmakers had never discussed the URI’s establishment with the government in any meeting or received any formal explanation about the new university.
She added that the commission planned to summon the Higher Education, Science and Technology Ministry to ask for a comprehensive explanation of the URI. - The Jakarta Post/ANN
