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University competitiveness
Various newspapers and blogs have, in the past few weeks, discussed about controversial ranking of Indonesian universities by Globe Asia magazine in its February issue
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Various newspapers and blogs have, in the past few weeks, discussed about controversial ranking of Indonesian universities by Globe Asia magazine in its February issue. The ranking is controversial because it places Pelita Harapan University (UPH) directly under the University of Indonesia and above other universities that have traditionally been regarded as the best in Indonesia.
On one hand, the magazine should be applauded for its attempt to rank Indonesian universities for the first time, because it gives the public access to previously unavailable information. The report questions the assumption that public universities in Indonesia are generally better than private universities.
It also raises the question whether the role of capital has enabled the better funded private universities to actually outperform the more reputable public universities, or whether it is merely marketing buzz.
On the other hand, strong opponents to the ranking deems it fallacious because Globe Asia magazine, like UPH, is owned by the Lippo Group and it gives more weight to university facilities over faculty members and research (Priyo Suprobo, Kompas, Feb. 15). The magazine also gives no indication of its data collection methods or sources of information. In other words, the credibility of the information is questionable.
Underlying this debate is the issue of information, specifically access to, credibility of, and ability to discern information. Information affects public perception in general. In this case, information influences how the public conceives a university's standing in comparison with others, and it affects prospective students and their parents in making decisions about choosing one university over others.
With the commercialization and privatization of universities, some fear that those with larger marketing budgets under their belts will be able to conduct campaigns that may very well enhance and even exaggerate their reputations. So how do we ascertain that this will not be the case?
The answer lies in the attempt of information sources to give more access and more credible information to the public, while individuals try to gain and demand more access to more credible information, and increase our ability to discern information.
Apart from word of mouth, currently the Indonesian public has little access to hard indicators that could help in determining the credibility of information about a university. University accreditation is rather dubious because of the ability of a university to manipulate the data, while the ones published by universities are often for marketing purposes.
Within this context, any attempts to rank universities against a similar set of criteria should be encouraged as it helps the public to gain a better sense of a university standing. Any attempts to rank universities, either nationally or globally, however, have been embedded with criticisms, and some draw more than the others. But regardless of their many controversies, university ranking systems enable the public to get a better sense about university standings in relation to the others.
Therefore, what we need is to have more versions of Indonesian university rankings and to provide and gain more access to other substantial information and reviews of universities, with a more credible methodology that would ensure more objective information. In addition, a third aspect needs to be emphasized, i.e. the ability to discern information.
To be able to discern information is to be able to determine the relevancy, credibility, neutrality, and validity of the information.
Some information also costs money to access, while others, like advertising, is "free" to the public. Information gathering, therefore, is an investment of energy, time, information processing, and, quite often, money.
To help close the information gap, before we invest in our own and our children's education, we should invest our energy, time, brain tissue, and money in finding information about our or our children's intentions and aspirations, and about the universities. We should make ourselves better informed and more literate consumers of education.
The writer is a UC Berkeley alumnus and an independent writer and researcher in education. She can be reached at d3wi.susanti@gmail.com.
