JAKARTA, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) — Indonesia’s higher education is expected to contribute to national competitiveness and the Indonesian government should also control the quality of higher education with a national accreditation system, Indonesian scholars told an international conference on Wednesday.
Didik J. Rachbini, a professor from University of Indonesia and Yuli Retnani, a lecturer from the Bogor Agricultural Institute, said that South Korea is an example of advanced industrial country that has succeeded in economic development and in improving people’s welfare mainly by developing higher education and qualified human resources.
“South Korea allocated budget for education no less than 23 percent of its total budget in the early 1970s, after it reached 15 percent of total budget in the previous decade,” Didik said.
He also said that the struggle of a nation to build qualified human resources is run through its educational system, more specifically how to handle higher educational system to produce high-quality human resources.
“To realize that, the government has to allocate more significant budget in education,” he said.
He also said that policy of development and management of higher education in Indonesia stated into at least five principles, namely quality, autonomy, accountability, accreditation and evaluation.
“These five elements in the national policy are used as a basis or reference for higher education management,” he said.
According to Didik, higher education budget was increased very rapidly, such as to improve the quality of national higher education so that it could enter the rank of world class universities.
“Budget for research and salary for lecturers and professors, improvement of information, communication and telecommunication are enhanced continuously to develop universities in Indonesia to have internationally quality,” he said.
The International Conference of Asia Philosophy Association (ICAPA), scheduled for Nov. 4-6, was held at the University of Indonesia, the biggest university in the country, in coordination with Turkey’s University of Faith, Jaedong Philosophical Association of Korea and Pacific Countries Social and Economic Solidarity Association (PASIAD) Indonesia.
(Source: xinhuanet.com)