In November 2012, David Willetts, the universities and science minister, signed an agreement with his Indonesian counterpart that struck eight new partnerships between UK universities and the most highly regarded Indonesian institutions. Cranfield University and Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB) are creating a double-degree Masters programme in engineering and technology, for example, while Newcastle University and Universitas Indonesia will establish a doctoral training centre.
They certainly have their work cut out. There seems to be relatively little independent outside scrutiny of Indonesian higher education, either by Western journalists or by global bodies such as the World Bank, but the few pieces of comparative analysis that exist do not paint a rosy picture. Indonesia finished bottom out of 50 countries in the 2013 edition of the Universitas 21 ranking which grades national higher education systems on investment, research output, gender balance, international connectivity and other measures (it scored particularly badly on the first two metrics).
Despite the doubling of graduate numbers between 2005 and 2012, the enrollment rate for tertiary education ” 22 percent for women and 24 percent for men ” still lags behind much of the rest of the region, according to a briefing on Indonesia™s education system released by the British Council in May.
And waiting in the wings is a huge new generation approaching university age. Out of Indonesia™s population of nearly quarter of a billion (the fourth largest of any nation), about 72 million are under age 14, according to World Bank statistics. The country will gain 250,000 more 15-19-year-olds between 2013 and 2014, the British Council report predicts.
œIn 20 to 30 years from now, these people will be running the country, says Fauzi Soelaiman, educational attach© at the Indonesian Embassy in London. And if they are not properly educated, the country will suffer. œThe job for the ministry of education is very, very tough these days, he adds.
Its task is made even more difficult by the country™s geography. Indonesia is an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, which makes it œhard to distribute education evenly, Soelaiman explains. More than 700 different languages are thought to be spoken across the country.
Indonesia was not occupied by the British but was colonised by the Dutch instead, and so œEnglish is not our second language, Soelaiman says. The lack of fluency in higher education™s emerging lingua franca has thwarted the government™s attempts to send Indonesian students abroad to earn Ph Ds. Of the country™s estimated 220,000 lecturers, fewer than half have doctorates. Thirty years ago, Solaiman taught undergraduates himself ” despite possessing only a BA at the time.
In 2008, the government set a target of 5,000 Indonesians completing Ph Ds each year. œWe could not match that, he admits. Soelaiman would like to spend more on English language courses for potential doctoral candidates, but the law does not allow scholarship money to be used on non-degree courses, he explains.
Christine Ennew, currently provost of the University of Nottingham™s Malaysia campus says that a lack of money is not the primary obstacle to building a stronger Indonesian faculty. œFunding is not a major consideration. It™s not like Bangladesh or Ethiopia, she says.
Over the next five years the government has committed to building 500 community colleges which will offer vocational courses in cookery, electrical installation, hairdressing and other skills, explains Soelaiman arguing that Indonesia™s jobs market will simply not support a flood of graduates with mere academic qualifications.

(Excerpted and adapted from Times Higher Education)