Improving the Quality of Teaching and Learning in Indonesian Universities: Issues and Challenges

Abstract

Academic leaders in Indonesian universities share a concern about the quality of teaching and learning in common with their colleagues in Western universities. Attention to the reform of teaching immediately raises questions of strategy. Short courses in teaching skills and curriculum development have been conducted in the past but it is argued that the continuation of these alone will not have the desired impact on quality in Indonesian universities in the short‐term. A distinctive and profoundly unsatisfactory feature of universities around the world is that the majority of teaching staff have no training or qualifications in teaching. Means of addressing this issue, and the university culture that supports it, include the creation of educational development centres to provide a continuing focus for development and change, a reconsideration of what it means to be an Indonesian academic, and the careful linking of institutional needs, planning, and change with the professional development of all staff.