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Indonesia opts to recruit foreign academics
Critics said the government should instead focus on developing research in universities.
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An illustration of a classroom. (Shutterstock/-)
W
ith the ambition of creating top-tier global universities, the government is pressing ahead with its plan to recruit foreign rectors and lecturers by 2020, despite claims that it will take more than foreign academics to improve the country’s higher education system.
Research, Technology and Higher Education Minister Mohamad Nasir said foreign academics were expected to produce higher-quality graduates as the country’s universities have struggled to improve their rankings in global charts of top universities.
The government, Nasir said, aimed to get local universities listed among the top 200 universities in the world.
“Many rectors and lecturers in Singapore are foreigners. King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Saudi Arabia ranked 800th [in global rankings] in 2005, now it ranks 189th, they succeed as a result of collaboration with foreigners,” he said.
Indonesia’s presence in global university rankings has long been dominated by a select few state universities. Global university rating institution Quacquarelli Symonds recently released its report, QS World University Rankings 2020, based on surveys conducted of more than 1,620 universities around the world.
According to the report, which was used by the government as a reference, nine Indonesian universities made it into the 1,000 top universities.
Among the nine universities, three made it into the top 500, namely the University of Indonesia (296th), Gadjah Mada University (320th) and the Bandung Institute of Technology (331st). Meanwhile, those ranked between 601 and 800 were the Bogor Agricultural Institute (IPB), Airlangga University and Padjajaran University. These universities also appear in other world rankings.
