The Deans of Social Sciences of Indonesian State University Forum (FORDEKIIS) Discuss Strategic Agenda at FISIPOL UGM

Yogyakarta, March 10th 2023─Faculty of Social and Political Sciences (Fisipol) UGM hosted the “National Meeting of the Deans of Social Sciences of Indonesian State University Forum (FORDEKIIS)” which took place from 9-11 March 2023. The main event on the second day was The FORDEKIIS Strategic Agenda discussion on the topic of Independent Accreditation Institutions was held at the 4th Floor Auditorium of Fisipol UGM. The activity was led by three speakers, namely Dr. Khairul Muluk from the Faculty of Administrative Sciences of Universitas Brawijaya, Prof. Israwan from the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences of Jenderal Soedirman University, and Prof. Agus Pramusinto as Chairman of the State Apparatus Commission.

Independent Accreditation Institute (Lembaga Akreditasi Mandiri/LAM) is an institution formed by the government or the community to accredit Study Programs independently. LAM was formed to support the acceleration and improvement of the study program quality assurance. Until now, the scope of LAM that has been formed and recognized by BAN-PT (National Accreditation Board for Higher Education) is six, namely LAM-PTKes (LAM for Higher Education in Health Sector), LAMEMBA (LAM for Economics Business Management and Accounting), LAMDIK (LAM for Education Sector), LAMSAMA (LAM Natural Science and Formal Science), LAM Infokom (Informatics and Computers), and LAM Engineering.

Khairul Muluk Muluk said that there are three fields of knowledge that do not yet have LAM, namely social sciences, agricultural sciences, and humanities. In the social sciences group, his presentation explained the development of the formation of LAMSPAK or the Social, Political, Administrative, and Communication Independent Accreditation Institution which is targeted to be completed soon. The requirement for the formation of LAM must have a legal entity as evidenced by the existence of a notarial deed and ratification by the Minister of Law and Human Rights.

“We don’t have a legal entity yet, and we can only form a legal entity when we have the approval of the minister, so we are currently just waiting for the status to be revised in the proposal review process, the target is to finish it next week,” said Khairul.

The second requirement is to obtain a decision on the list of study programs within the scope of LAM from the Ministry of Education and Culture. On the PDDIKTI website as of 2022, there are 4,318 study programs for social clusters and after checking using BAN-PT data, there are only 1996 study programs. Khairul said, the more study programs taught, the lower the cost of accreditation.

“The science cluster supported by LAMSPAK is the social sciences cluster, the social sub-cluster and we will also include the defense sub-cluster, but there is also an applied sciences cluster, namely the business, communications, and social sub-clusters,” he said.

Then, the third requirement is to have a study program accreditation instrument stipulated by the BAN-PT Accreditation Council. However, Israwan said that the BAN-PT instruments were general in nature, so specific instruments were needed from each scientific cluster that would characterize each study program.

“So, later, we will have two instruments, first the general instrument that is used by all study programs under LAMSPAK refers to the BAN-PT instrument, and then we will add a maximum of 10 identifying points from each study program so that it can help the study program identify its advantages,” said Israwan.

To obtain very good accreditation, LAMSPAK compiles quality standards for accreditation guided by Permendikbud No. 3 of 2022, namely the main quality standards sourced from SN DIKTI as a minimum standard and additional quality standards according to the conditions of each tertiary institution which must be stipulated in a written regulation as performance measurement tool.

In addition to these three requirements, the establishment of an LAM must also have standard procedures for implementing study program accreditation, the necessary facilities and infrastructure, sufficient number of assessors and meeting the requirements, and obtaining ministerial approval regarding the amount of fees charged for accreditation.

After the presentation on LAMSPAK, the next session was the presentation of material by Agus Pramusinto regarding the prevention and protection of the neutrality of the State Civil Apparatus. Agus conveyed that currently he has begun to disassemble who is the opponent and who is the friend in the next election which will take place on February 14, 2024.