Indonesia: Private Universities Under Threat

David Jardine
Some 700 private universities in Indonesia have been put on notice by the Ministry of National Education that their accreditation will be withdrawn if they do not quickly comply with regulations. The universities are under instructions to re-register with the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights.
Many of Indonesia's 2,700 private universities are run by foundations known as yayasan, which are essentially charities. Yayasan have a rather controversial history especially as the late dictator Suharto used a network of more than 100 of them to hide revenues and to move them around.
Weak law enforcement has made it difficult to police such foundations. The National Education Ministry, however, gave the foundation-run higher education institutes three years up to December 2008 to complete the re-registration process that would bring them under proper supervision but the 700 are still apparently dragging their feet.
Universities are being given the option of changing their status by severing ties with the foundations that run them by becoming managed educational agencies (BHPP) or public educational agencies (BHPM). This would bring them into line with the 2009 Law on Autonomy for Educational Institutions passed last year by the House of Representatives.
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Source: University World News,Issue No: 0090 30 August 2009