Improving Quality Assurance in Indonesia: Lessons from USAID Higher Education Leadership and Management

• In Event: Leveling the Playing Field in Higher Education in Indonesia: Opening the Doors to Those Being Excluded

Proposal

Improving higher education quality has been a major focus of Indonesian policy makers and donors for more than a decade, but scholars disagree on best approaches to improve quality. Policy makers and many scholars support quality assurance (QA) approaches, while others advocate for quality enhancement (QE) strategies. QA comprises a set of organizational units and practices that ensures effective functioning and a minimum quality of outcomes. QA generally has two complementary elements: external QA (EQA), which is focused on validation by external sources (i.e., accreditation) in meeting or exceeding national standards, and internal QA (IQA), which focuses on self-assessment for meeting or exceeding national standards and other performance metrics that the institution may elect to track. QE focuses on improvements in student learning and the advancement of academic disciplines, and QE advocates frequently critique QA for adhering to resource-based criteria and including student outcomes as an afterthought if at all.

Since the enactment of the Higher Education Reform Law of 2012, QA (both external and internal) has become significantly more prominent in public higher education institutions, and QA was one of the four major foci of USAID’s Higher Education Leadership and Management (HELM) project, through which approximately half of Indonesia’s public higher education institutions participated in training and other capacity building activities. While QA is critical for establishing minimum standards, several of the institutions supported by HELM simultaneously adopted a QE approach, focusing on key student learning processes, student outcomes, and faculty development. Using the Most Significant Change approach[1], this case study documents stakeholders’ views of the most critical success factors in generating that impact.

Data collection for this case study incorporated a variety of methods and sources: literature review; review of extant accreditation data and HELM project data; interviews with university officials; focus group discussions with faculty members, university staff, and students; and interviews with government officials. Seven institutions were selected for site visits based on improvements in institutional accreditation and innovations related to use of data and evidence for quality improvement.

Prior to 2012, many institutions had a very limited IQA system, consisting primarily of student course evaluations. These efforts were nascent, and the data were not effectively used to support professional development or to improve curricula and research. As of 2016, substantial changes had occurred in both EQA and IQA systems. With leadership teams now committed to developing effective IQA systems, institutions are conducting internal academic audits to assist study programs prepare for accreditation in addition to routine student assessments. Within each faculty (and in some cases, study programs), QA teams have been established with a mandate to strengthen teaching, learning, and research – effectively taking on a broader QE role as well as a QA role.

This presentation will discuss the critical steps taken to translate new policies into institutional reform, and to the extent documented, the impacts on students and faculty to date.

[1] R. Davies, & J. Dart. (2005). Most Significant Change Guide. http://www.mande.co.uk/docs/MSCGuide.pdf.

Author

• Christine L Allison, University of Minnesota / JBS International