Erwida Maulia, Jakarta – The newly endorsed law on legal education entities continues to ignite public outcry, despite the government's efforts to defuse accusations that the legislation could lead to the commercialization of education. On Monday, education experts reiterated their objections to the law, threatening to file for a judicial review by the Constitutional Court of some contentious articles in the law.
The experts, however, have not yet decided which articles they will seek to have reviewed.
"There's only one option left to us: filing for a review of the law by the Constitutional Court. Therefore we must scrutinize which part of the law justifies the court fight," Utomo Dananjaya, director of Paramadina University's Institute for Education Reform, told a discussion on the law.
He said the law, endorsed by the House of Representatives last month, upheld the principles of autonomous campus management that had allowed six state universities to raise and manage public funds in exchange for reduced government subsidies.
Since the inception of the new status for the six universities in the early 2000s, Utomo went on, subsidies for the top state universities had been gradually cut at the expense of underprivileged students.
Former Jakarta State University rector Soedijarto said the national budget allocated to higher education only accounted for 0.24 percent of the GDP in 2007, much smaller in comparison to the United States, whose budget for higher education reached 2.5 percent of its GDP.
"Education legal entities indicate the government's attempts to evade its responsibility for funding education. This is a move that is in essence violating the Constitution," Soedijarto said.
Another former rector of Jakarta State University, Winarno Surakhmad, warned the impact of the law would be apparent within the next five years. He said he suspected there was a hidden agenda behind the law.
"The 2003 Law on the National Education System consists of up to 37 mandates the government must follow up on; why does it prioritize school management matters? Can it settle the problems of education in the country? I think this education legal entity law only creates more problems," Winarno said.
Conversely, observer Abbas Ghazali from Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University said he had no reason to worry about the new legislation.
The law, he went on, ruled on limiting the fees state universities could charge students to a maximum of one-third of their operating costs, while specifying that operating and investment costs of primary schools were the responsibilities of the government and local administrations.
"The crucial part of this law is its implementation," he said.