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any agree that Indonesian universities perform worse than their Asian counterparts, with poor academic performance and lack of recognition from industries and government. Despite criticism of its criteria, the Times Higher Education ranking is widely seen as confirmation of this problem.

For the 2014-2015 ranking, no Indonesian universities were listed in the top 400 world universities. Jonathan Pincus wrote in this newspaper that lack of accountability and competition in higher education were two primary causes.

The ranking does not tell the whole story of highly diverse Indonesian universities in terms of their management status or bureaucratic affiliation to particular ministries. Considering this heterogeneity is important, particularly to assess which universities suffer which obstacles.

This knowledge is crucial not only to offer proper prescriptions for particular universities, but also to enable us to see that the crisis in Indonesian universities is indeed unequally shared.

Since the Times 2015 survey only listed the best 400 world universities, of which no Indonesian universities were included, we need to look at other survey results. QS University Rankings for the best 300 Asian universities included the relatively established Indonesian state universities, all of which are accountable to the Research and Technology and Higher Education Ministry.

Using the webometric ranking as a proxy to measure public trust, the 50 most popular Indonesian universities website may provide a more varied interpretation.

While it covers a more diverse university background and includes 20 Indonesian private universities, it only includes a handful of universities from outside the scope of the abovementioned ministry. Of 50 universities, only three are state Islamic universities (UIN) falling under the authority of the Religious Affairs Ministry.

The fact that all UIN were absent from the top 300 Asian universities and underrepresented in the webometric'€™s top 50 list raises questions. As national education aims to ensure equal opportunity, it is particularly intriguing to find out the reason for this underrepresentation. UIN are present not only in big cities, but also in small towns and regencies across the nation, thus potentially bringing education to a wider audience.

Historically, UIN also serve as the primary educational destination for Muslim students from the working classes.

The gap between their potential contribution and their actual academic performance is due to several factors.

Firstly, most UIN still struggle to transform their predominantly dogmatic and normative teaching into methods that are more historically informed. As extensions of the Religious Affairs Ministry, the historical necessity of UIN to teach religious norms for decades undoubtedly creates little incentive for scientific endeavors.

While the interdisciplinary approach that unites Islamic studies and contemporary perspectives in modern sciences has been promoted by, among others, Professor M. Amin Abdullah, a former rector of UIN Sunan Kalijaga in Yogyakarta, the practice of this innovation is far from easy. Instead of adopting critical perspectives on social contemporary issues, many UIN teachings still aim to place contemporary issues under religious dogma or norms. Its negative effect does not only stop at poor research quality, but more importantly, extends to lower trust from the public and the industry.

This philosophical teaching issue is aggravated by the heavy bureaucratic challenges commonly faced by UIN teaching staff. While many universities under the higher education ministry succeeded in acquiring top positions because of their innovative policies in market competitiveness, most UIN remain '€œloyal'€ to bureaucratic rules that prevent their staffs'€™ deeper engagement with the wider academic network and the public.

One telling sign is that many young UIN lecturers still encounter bureaucratic problems when they wish to engage in further study. This does not only discourage individual lecturers from continuing their studies, but also affects their institutions.

The Religious Affairs Ministry has revealed that the number of UIN lecturers with doctoral degrees is still less than 15 percent of total lecturers. Meanwhile, the proportion may be at least 20 percent in many universities under the higher education ministry, including 20.5 percent at Gadjah Mada University, 32.7 percent at Andalas University, 32 percent at Makassar State University and 70.6 percent at the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB).

Nevertheless, many UIN lecturers perform well, often even better than their counterparts at secular universities. However, the success is thanks more to individual, rather than institutional, efforts.

Greater and more frequent platforms for capacity development are needed. The Annual International Conference on Islamic Studies held recently in Manado, North Sulawesi, was certainly one effort toward improvement by the Religious Affairs Ministry.

But to duplicate many individual successes into institutional achievements, a reform of Islamic state universities'€™ academic policies is unquestionably required.