Indonesia-EU higher education partnership: opportunities and impediments
Gunaryadi
The Hague, 24 September 2006
The international competitiveness of Indonesia’s higher education has been quite alarming. From the ‘Academic Ranking of World Universities 2005’ of the Shanghai Jiao Tong Univer-sity, no Indonesian university listed in the best 100s. In 2000, the Asiaweek placed Bandung Institute of Technology merely at the 21st and Indonesian University at the 61st. Concurrently a list made by the Webometric indicating the commitment to publish in the cyberspace, only the Bandung Institute attained the Asia’s 49th or the world’s 707th.
Despite the methodology and indicators used in constructing the matrixes were contentious, nonetheless, they indeed reflected that the collective competitiveness of Indonesian universi-ties was lagging behind.
Numerous factors generated such dawdle. One of them was the capability to initiate and maintain cooperation with international counterparts as surviving in this globalised higher education the network and cooperation with international partners are inevitable. A strategic partnership that should be developed is with the EU higher education institutions.
Why the supranational Union matters in this field? Avoiding the controversial category of EU as an international “actor