July 11, 2024
JAKARTA – Authorities are investigating 11 faculty members at Lambung Mangkurat University (ULM) who have been accused of violating academic ethics to earn their professorships, as public pressure rises on the government to sanction academics of similar cases plaguing the country’s higher education.
The state university in Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan, became mired in controversy in recent weeks after an anonymous whistleblower reported that at least 11 of its professors had published academic papers in problematic journals.
Publishing at least one paper in an academic journal and teaching for at least 10 years are among the requirements for a lecturer to apply for a professorship, according to a circular issued in May by the Higher Education Directorate General of the Education, Culture, Research and Technology Ministry.
The circular specifies that the journal must be a world-renowned publication, but the 11 ULM professors are alleged of resorting to publishing their papers in so-called predatory journals: publications that essentially operate on a pay-to-publish basis with minimal peer review and an acceptance rate of nearly 100 percent.
The whistleblower’s tip prompted the education ministry’s inspectorate general to open an investigation late last year, which the ULM leadership followed up by forming a team to conduct an internal probe.
“Several colleagues and I were asked by the rector to form a fact-finding team,” ULM deputy rector Iwan Aflanie said on Sunday, as quoted by Tempo.co.
Iwan said the team had gathered the names of potential members and submitted the list to the ministry, adding that it aimed to confirm the results of the ministry’s prior investigation into whether the 11 professors had committed academic misconduct.
“We will also be coordinating with the ministry’s [investigation] team,” he said.
Dubious processes
A Tempo Magazine investigative report published on Monday found that the illicit practice of academics using predatory journals to gain professorships also involved several state officials, including Reda Manthovani, assistant attorney general for intelligence at the Attorney General’s Office, and Siti Nur Azizah, a lecturer at 17 August 1945 University, Jakarta, and a daughter of Vice President Ma’ruf Amin.
The report also alleged that House of Representatives Deputy Speaker Sufmi Daso Ahmad, who is also a Gerindra Party executive, earned his professorship without fulfilling the 10-year teaching requirement, while his papers were published in journals that were either discontinued or not indexed by Scopus.
The Scopus multidisciplinary database of peer-reviewed publications is regarded as the global standard for high-quality academic journals, books and related literature.
Muhammad Afif Hasbullah, a former chair of the Business Competition Supervisory Commission (KPPU), is also alleged of publishing in problematic journals.
Tempo also alleged that People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) Speaker Bambang Soesatyo, a Golkar Party politician, had earned his postgraduate degree before completing an undergraduate degree.
All five have denied the allegations laid out in the Tempo article, either by saying that they had followed prevailing academic processes or by pointing to data inputting errors for any irregularities.
The Tempo investigative report also found that some members of the education ministry’s assessment team, which is responsible for recommending and evaluating professorship applications, had violated ethics.
These violations ranged from soliciting bribes from applicants to approving professorships for applicants that had published in non-Scopus-indexed journals.
Integrity crisis
In a statement on Tuesday, the Bandung Institute of Technology Professors’ Forum (FGB ITB) said a loophole in the 2012 Higher Education Law allowed nonpermanent lecturers deemed to possess extraordinary competency to be awarded professorships upon a recommendation from their university.
“Such competency should be viewed as implicit knowledge [gained] from one’s experience that can be translated into something academically explicit that contributes to the development of science and the community,” the forum wrote.
“Unfortunately, this is not happening, resulting in many people obtaining a professorship despite not having a full-time job at a university,” it continued, adding that resorting to unethical practices to gain professorships could lower the country’s academic standard and trust in Indonesian educational institutions.
In a separate statement, Indonesian Academy of Young Scientists (ALMI) chair Gunadi said the illicit practice had tarnished Indonesia’s credibility in higher education.
“In the short and long terms, a system that allows fraudulent practices to continue will adversely impact the quality of human resources [it produced],” said Gunadi, a molecular genomic scientist at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta.
He said the issue had put the country in the spotlight of the international academic community, and that it could diminish trust in Indonesian universities if the government failed to act on the alleged misconduct.
ALMI also called on President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and education minister Nadiem Makarim to immediately sanction all parties found to have committed academic dishonesty, including stripping unethical academics of their professorship.