Indonesian higher education: from public good to privatization

Indonesian higher education plays an important role in the acceleration of modernization in the country. Indonesia began to have higher education only after independence. And since then, the Indonesian government has founded and expanded higher education institutions; up until 2004 there were 81 public universities under Ministry of National Education (MONE) and 59 under Ministry of Religious Affairs (MORA). The government provides a large portion of the budget of these universities for the public good. But since the time of monetary, economic, and political crises in 1997, the government financial subsidy to higher education has decreased significantly. In line with that, the government also introduced a kind of privatization of public universities that has been opposed by lecturer and student groups who maintain that with that kind of programme, Indonesian government has treated higher education as a commodity. No doubt, the tug of war among various elements in the Indonesian society will continue in the years to come on the issue of whether public universities should be privatized or should be financed by the state.