The Indonesian government introduced a regulation aimed at
boosting scientific output. From August on, all Bachelor students
will be required to have a paper published in a scientific
magazine. For Master and doctoral students this rule is even
stricter stating that the magazine in question needs to be
accredited and international for the latter.
Djoko Santoso, Director General of Higher Education at the
Ministry of Education at culture, argued that "graduates must
possess the ability to write scientifically. The culture of writing
should become familiar, and university is the place to create a new
culture of writing."
Research trailing behind other Asian
Right now, scientific research is faring poorly in Indonesia
which is also a drag in international university rankings. The
country has a population of 238 million. Still, it produced only
12,776 peer-reviewed papers between 1996 and 2007. Over the same
time span, Singapore (5 million) and Malaysia (28 million) had a
research output of 105,665 and 53,979 respectively.
Despite triggering a heated debate, the regulation will be legally binding
for both private and public institutes. "My faculty has an academic
journal that publishes every six months, and every year we graduate
hundreds of students. Imagine how thick the journal would be if we
publish all undergraduate's research papers," commented Herlina
Agustin from Padjadjaran University.