UNS — The Head of The Council of Rector of Indonesian State University (CRISU) who is also the Rector of Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta, Prof. Jamal Wiwoho, appreciated the step taken by the Ministry of Education and Culture (Kemdikbud) of the Republic of Indonesia (RI) that increase the education budget for 2021 to IDR 4.9 trillion. This is a significant increase compared to the education budget for 2020 which is only IDR 2.9 trillion. This appreciation was conveyed when the Rector acted as a speaker in Bincang Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan (Education and Culture Talk) held by the Directorate General of Higher Education (Ditjen Dikti) Kemdikbud RI, through Zoom Cloud Meeting, Friday (6/11/2020) afternoon.
In the presence of 50 reporters who joined the discussion, Prof. Jamal shared a topic on the transformation of government budgets for higher education which is hinted by the President of RI, Joko Widodo, in episode 6 Merdeka Belajar, 3 November 2020, which, according to Prof. Jamal is very interesting because the aims of Kemdikbud RI to establish Indonesian universities as a globally competitive educational institution. To this day, the allocation of budget for higher education falls short compared to other countries such as the United States (US) and China.
“The limited budget for education can have a root in the limited budget allocation from the state. Besides, we cannot deny that we have great numbers of the population,” Prof. Jamal stated. he added that the limit in the budget also affects the quality of higher education. out of 4,600 universities in Indonesia, he mentioned, the number of universities accredited with level A is very low. Out of 27,000 of programs in 4,600 universities in 2015, only 3% were accredited with level A, 29% were accredited with B, and around 68% were accredited with C. However, Prof. Jamal appreciated the increase in the number of universities accredited with Level A in 2018 and 2019.
In 2018, 5% of universities were accredited with A or 76 universities, 38% or 595 universities were accredited with B, and 57% or 884 universities were accredited with C. From this number, Prof. Jamal made a comparison with the universities in China. He mentioned that China has less than 2,500 universities with more than 1 billion population, but 10 of those universities are ranked among the best 500 universities in the world. “Indonesia has very few universities which included in the best universities worldwide. This is what we keep encouraging, to improve the accreditation quality both at the national and international level,” Prof. Jamal continued. Humas UNS
Reporter: Yefta Christopherus AS
Editor: Dwi Hastuti
