In January, the country saw at least 77,875 local students enrolling in foreign universities in 15 countries around the world, including in Southeast Asia. The figure is almost seven times higher than the number of students originating from the same countries pursuing their study in Indonesia, which stood at 12,374.

The gap has grown larger since 2017 when 64,672 Indonesian studied in the 15 countries and 7,791 foreign students were enrolled in Indonesia.

Large gaps between outbound and inbound countries are not only observed in developed countries like the United States but also in neighboring countries such as Malaysia and Thailand, both of which received around 10,000 Indonesian students while sending only around 3,500 students at the beginning of this year.

With more than 1,000 universities, institutes and polytechnics spread across the archipelago and tens of thousands study programs offered, the country is struggling to excel on the international stage, as shown by their presence, or lack thereof, in acknowledged global university rankings.

This has prompted Research, Technology and Higher Education Minister Mohamad Nasir to announce plans to recruit foreign academics in a bid to boost local universities into the list of top 200 universities in the world — a move that has raised criticism among education practitioners and observers.

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