Big Ambitions, Mediocre Results: Politics, Power and the Quest for World-Class Universities in Indonesia

Abstract

For more than a decade, the Indonesian government has sought to transform the country’s higher education institutions (HEIs), particularly its leading ones, into ‘world-class universities’. In 2006, the Education Ministry (hereafter MoEC) established a special task force to elevate ten local HEIs to world-class status (Haryanti 2010). A year later, the Education Minister, Bambang Sudibyo, announced that it had expanded the list to 50 HEIs, including 27 state and 23 private universities (Antara 2007). Recent Education Ministry five-year plans have accordingly set targets for the number of Indonesian HEIs to be ranked among the world’s top universities in global university league tables such as the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, Shanghai Jiao Tong’s Academic Ranking of World Universities, and the QS World University Rankings. MoEC’s strategic plan for 2005–2009, for instance, aimed to have four Indonesian HEIs in either the world’s top 500 universities or Asia’s top 100 (Department of National Education 2005: 52). Its strategic plan for 2010–2014 aimed to increase this to 11 HEIs in the world’s top 500 (Ministry of Education and Culture 2010: 43).