Current Status and Problems in the Expansion of Higher Education in Indonesia

Abstract

Indonesia made lower secondary school education compulsory starting from the academic year 1994/95 as part of the sixth five-year plan that it implemented in the same year. The five-year plan is expected to further expand upper secondary school and higher education. Statistics on higher education in Indonesia have been under-developed for a long period of time. Therefore, this study employs information provided in a college directory bulletin as a measure for acquiring chronological data.
By 1962 half of the existing national institutions of higher education had been founded and by 1964 this figure was three quarters. The number of national institutions founded after 1965 is thus small. On the other hand, half of the existing private institutions of higher education were founded by 1981 (and 3/4 by 1985). The ratio of the number of private schools to the total, based upon school statistics prepared by the Ministry of Education and Culture, has been over 90 percent, starting with the academic year 1983/84, and it was as high as 95 percent in the year 1992/93. The ratio of the number of students attending private schools to the total gradually increased from 40 percent in 1975 and reached a high level of 71 percent in the year 1992/93. This fact. indicates that the expansion of higher education is due mostly to the expansion of private school.
It is, however, questionable whether the graduates of institutions of higher education, whose number is on the increase, are appreciated in the labor market according to their educational background. In general, the unemployment rate for the graduates of institutions of secondary education is high while those for graduates of institutions for primary and for higher education are low. However, the comparison of unemployment rates within age brackets shows that the unemployment rate is higher for graduates of higher education than for the rest.
Unemployment of the highly educated is a waste of limited resources and can be a social problem. The unemployment rate of the highly educated would further increase if higher education is expanded without its contents being changed while the industrial structure remains almost the same. Plans for the expansion of higher education should include schemes for making the graduates competitive in the labor market.