7 Board of National Standards on Education BSNP and is enacted by the MoEC regulation. Although
learning outcomes have been included in the national standards, the current assessment process does not assign significant weight to the outcomes. One of the possible reasons is that assessors are not yet
sufficiently trained to assess educational outcomes.
In addition to government accreditation, some study programs in more established universities also acquire international accreditation, mostly from international professional associations such as the
Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology ABET. In ASEAN, the ASEAN University Network AUN provides services to assess the quality of an education provider. Some university study programs
have benefitted from such optional external services.
2.2.2 Professional certification
In the context of Indonesia, the higher education sector also includes vocational education conducted by polytechnics, and in some cases by universities and colleges. Many of these providers are also licensed
to certify graduates of the study programs on behalf of relevant professional associations. In some fields, the professional certification brings significant benefits to the graduates so that many also put
effort into acquiring it, either through their higher education institution or directly from the professional association.
In specific sectors such as health, a national exit examination is organized by the relevant professional association. Only examinees that pass this examination are certified, and without this certification a
graduate is not eligible to acquire the license for practice. Such national exit examinations have been imposed for medical doctors and nurses.
While an important means of checking competence, exit checks or tests should be accompanied by the assessment of educational inputs through accreditation because experience indicates that over reliance
on exit examinations can encourage manipulation of the testing process.
2.2.3 Internal quality assurance
Since quality assurance is about providing confidence in the outcome of study programs, quality assurance should also involve external accreditation. Although external assessment is an important
aspect in assuring quality, quality assurance must be internally driven. Currently concerns over quality assurance in many institutions are only observed prior to the accreditation cycle. In the long run,
reliance on external quality assurance alone will not be sustainable.
The culture of continuous quality improvement was widely popularized in 1970s by the culture practiced in the Japanese manufacturing industries. Subsequently the concept has been adopted, not only by
industries, but also by organizations in the social sector including educational institutions. Therefore, the development of a quality culture in any learning organizations should eventually become the ultimate
objective to ensure sustainability of high quality outcomes for graduates.
The concept of continuous quality improvement Kaizen, as illustrated in Figure-3, was considered to be the strength of Japanese industries in their competition with the more established industries in Western
economies. Kaizen, originally introduced to the West by Masaaki Imai [Imai 1986], today is recognized worldwide as an important pillar of an organization’s long-term competitive strategy. The lessons
learned in other industries can be applied to educational institutions.
Although an internal quality assurance unit is mandatory for all higher education institutions, its effectiveness varies significantly between institutions. The policy directions of the MoRTHE should
provide the clear message that strong internal quality assurance is the ultimate objective and this must be reinforced in the National Standards on Education and through assessment by BAN-PT.
8
NORMS AND STANDARDS
AUDIT
BELOW STANDARD
MEET STANDARD
IDENTIFY PROBLEMS
CORRECTIVE MEASURES
EVALUATE STANDARDS
IMPROVEMENT
Figure-3: KAIZEN: Continuous quality improvement
2.3 Implementation of competency standards
