Government to reform university rector elections

The Indonesian government has set up a team to reform the system for electing university rectors for the country’s public universities after claims surfaced at a number of universities in recent weeks of attempts to use bribery to alter the outcome of the often highly politicised campaigns.

The new team comprising representatives of the Research, Technology and Higher Education Ministry, the Indonesian Ombudsman, the State Civilian Bureaucracy Commission or KASN and the Corruption Eradication Commission or KPK, was set up this month to establish “a more transparent and accountable electoral system for rectors in the future”, the ministry said.

Last month the KPK, which is also responsible for supervising rector elections, said it had received reports of “irregularities” in the elections at a number of state universities, though it would not give details.

Separately, a member of the Indonesian Ombudsman, a government body that assesses, monitors and ensures the implementation of government regulations, said it had received information that “at least seven state universities in Sumatra, Java and Sulawesi” had been suspected of bribery related to rector elections, and that it was looking into the allegations. The alleged bribes varied between IDR1.5 billion (US$112,000) and IDR5 billion (US$375,000).

Minister of Research, Technology and Higher Education Muhammad Nasir said at a press conference on 4 November that a new regulation would be drawn up based on the team’s recommendations which he expected to be delivered by the end of this year.

“An assessment on the mechanism of rector elections in state universities is needed now because I want rectors who have good qualities to lead the campuses,” Nasir said.

According to members of the newly set up team, Indonesia’s new rector regulation, expected to come into effect next year, will require rector candidates to have proven competency, good track records and published academic works. The planned regulation could also stipulate the presence of the education minister or his representative during the rector’s election – currently the candidates’ names drawn up by the university senate are submitted to the ministry.

Rector qualifications

Universities and politics are intermingled under the current system, according to many academics. Some who jockey for position in parliament or government administration rush to obtain university certificates from universities to which they are well-connected, and may provide government favours in return. A rector-to-be might rely on political and financial support to enable him or her to secure the votes of the university senate.

During elections every rector candidate has their own campaign team. “The rector electoral system emulates a [provincial] governor or district head election. This is weird for a university, which is supposed to select people based on academic values,” said KPK Commissioner Laode M Syarif.

This is a “common practice” in rector elections in many state universities, the KPK, KASN and Ombudsman found, though “we can exclude a few reputed universities, such as the University of Indonesia, Bandung Institute of Technology and Yogyakarta-based Gadjah Mada University”, Ombudsman Commissioner Laode Ida said.

“Money-politics exist in the university,” Ida said, adding that many are keen to gain positions at the helm of universities because of the influence and financial benefits it bestows. “Universities have big projects. They involve big money, and some of the money would not be liable to auditing because it is non-tax revenue,” Ida maintained. “They do anything to get the position.”

Some candidates pay editors of international scientific journals to get their article published, which is required to become a professor, Ida claimed. “Worse, they do not write the articles themselves. Instead, they ask somebody to do it. They do not consider themselves people of education.”

Rectors’ qualifications are not clearly mentioned in the current regulations. “A number of local legislators and officials have academic titles after their names, but they never attended classes, or sat the exams,” Ida told University World News.

The deliberations within the newly formed team have not started, but Ida suggests a focus on the system for nominating rectors so that candidates are competent, have a good record, reputation and integrity. “The dynamics within the university should result in these quality candidates,” he said.

Minister’s block vote

Another area open to abuse is the block vote of the research, technology and higher education minister – worth 35% of the total – in rector elections.

Under the current system, university senate members select three candidates. But even if a candidate is successful in getting the majority of the senate votes, they will not necessarily become rector as, under the current ministerial regulation, the higher education minister wields a commanding vote.

This opens the way for lobbyists who claim to have the ear of the minister to secure bribes to obtain the minister’s decision, according to members of the newly-appointed team looking into the matter.

Before 2010 the country’s president selected rectors for state universities. But the right of the minister to cast 35% of the vote – with the other 65% from the university senate – resulted from a 2010 ministry regulation by then education minister Muhammad Nuh to increase university autonomy.

However, it “provides room for corruption”, KPK’s Syarif said. He called on candidates not to believe those who claim to have bargaining power with the minister.

“In future, direct interactions between rector candidates and ministry officials should be prohibited," the current minister Nasir said during his press conference. He added that possible changes to be considered would be to lower the minister’s percentage vote or to return power to the government to select rectors.

But Ida said that would not stop corruption. “If the percentage is lowered to 20% or lower, it is still a key to winning. People would try to get that by any means necessary.”

Moeflich Hasbullah, a senior lecturer at the State Islamic University of Bandung, says giving the minister full authority to select the rector merely shifts the problem. “This is worse because the judgment comes from a single person,” he said, and added that attempts at bribery might focus on the minister’s office.

A better solution is to give university senates all the votes. “Leave it to the universities. Let them make their own decision – good or bad. Let them be responsible for their own reputation,” Hasbullah said.

“Then natural selection will work,” according to Hasbullah. Good students would avoid universities with a poor reputation, good lecturers would not apply to them and existing lecturers and staff might leave, while universities with a good reputation “will prevail”, he said.

Syarif said his organisation would take legal action if it found sufficient evidence of bribery, but any investigation would be independent of the team’s deliberations on reforming the system.