The incident of sting operation carried out by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) against a number of Universitas Lampung (Unila) officials, including rector and vice chancellors, with an alleged corruption value estimated at Rp5 billion has raised public concern. State universities (PTN) are expected to be role models for the community, not only in terms of academic integrity, but also in terms of good governance practices in public institutions.
If later it is proven in court the alleged corruption case involving the bribery of Unila officials in connection with the acceptance of new students through independent selection test, it shows that there are still structural problems in governance of state universities, as identified by Andrew Rosser (2022), so corruption still occurs. In the midst of high concern for state universities, the alleged corruption case at Unila should be a momentum to seriously implement the integrity zone (ZI) initiative within state universities.
The ZI concept has actually been implemented for quite a long time in ministries and state institutions. The ZI concept is actually an initiative to achieve the goals of bureaucratic reform, which is derived from the grand design of bureaucratic reform, which was issued in Presidential Regulation Number 81 of 2010, and is revealed in the bureaucratic reform road map every five years. The final bureaucratic reform road map is, for the 2020-2024 period, based on the 2020 Ministerial Regulation of the Ministry of the Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform (Permenpan-RB).
The Change Area
Referring to the latest version of the regulation, which is Permenpan-RB Number 90 of 2021 on Development of Evaluation of Integrity Zones towards Corruption-Free Areas (WBK) and Clean and Serving Bureaucratic Areas (WBBM), there are six areas of change in encouraging bureaucratic reform. The six areas of change with a total assessment weight of 60%, each consist of change management (8%), governance arrangements (7%), HR management arrangements (10%), strengthening supervision (15%), strengthening performance accountability (10%), and improving the quality of public services (10%).
The implementation of each area of change in the work unit will later be measured by an internal assessment team, both at the national level and in ministries/state agencies in two aspects: the fulfillment aspect and the reform aspect. It is not enough with the measurement of those six areas of change. Later, the work unit will also be measured in terms of the two main targets which have a total weight of 40%. The first main target is the realization of a clean and accountable government with a weight of 22.5%, which will be measured through a corruption perception index survey to external parties (17.5%), and performance achievement (5%).
The second main target is excellent service quality, with a weight of 17.5% as measured through a service satisfaction survey of external parties. Later, after going through the internal assessment stage, each ministry and state agency will propose a work unit to be assessed at the national level in order to obtain the WBK or WBBM title. Work units that obtain a minimum total score of 75 in the national level assessment will receive WBK status.
Work units that obtain a total score of 85 and have obtained WBK status will receive WBBM status. Enthusiasm and participation from ministries and state agencies has been quite high every year in the ZI initiative to obtain the WBK and WBBM titles. In 2021, there will be 558 work units of ministries and state agencies that will receive the WBK and WBBM titles. The number of work units proposed in 2021 has also increased by 19% compared to 2020.
A total of 2,239 work units were proposed in 2019, then increased to 3,691 work units in 2020, and 4,402 work units in 2021. Leaders of ministries and state institutions that produce many work units with WBK and WBBM predicates are awarded by Kemenpan-RB as change leaders, including Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani, Head of the Indonesian National Police General Listyo Sigit Prabowo, Governor of the Special Region of Yogyakarta Sri Sultan Hamengkubuwono X, and Mayor of Bandung Yana Mulyana.
Integrity Zone
Within the scope of the Directorate General of Higher Education, Research, and Technology (Dikti-Ristek), the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology (Kemdibud-Ristek) has encouraged the ZI initiative including state universities by providing intensive assistance in recent years. December 2021 was a historic moment for Dikti-Ristek, for the first time state universities received the WBK title from the Kemenpan-RB. Surprisingly, there are five PTNs that won WBK titles, which are the Faculty of Public Health, Universitas Indonesia (FKM UI), the Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Gadjah Mada (FT UGM), the Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitas Padjadjaran (FEB Unpad), the Faculty of Agricultural Technology, Universitas Brawijaya (FTP UB) , and the Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Diponegoro (FT Undip). Many bureaucratic reform initiatives or programs from state universities with the WBK predicate can serve as examples for improving governance in other state universities. For example, FKM UI created a functional job position monitoring application system (Simojang), which is important for monitoring and accelerating the increase in functional job position of lecturers up to FKM UI Professors level.
In addition, FEB Unpad made an innovation by creating an e-office application in order to evaluate the performance of lecturers and faculty structural officials. FTP UB, to streamline their academic services, builds an Integrated Administrative Information System (SIAT) application. Within Universitas Indonesia (UI) itself, the ZI initiative towards WBK and WBBM has been increasingly encouraged, especially since the last two years or so. In order to achieve the objectives of the ZI initiative, it is necessary to have a framework that will become a frame of reference in the implementation of bureaucratic reform and university transformation (RBTU) within UI.
The RBTU framework uses UI Strategic Plan 2020–2024 reference, with a balanced scorecards approach, and refers to the Kemenpan-RB ZI concept. Within the RBTU framework, there are three main themes that underlie UI bureaucratic reform. The first one is the theme of HR management, organizational and administrative management. The second is the theme of digitalization, legislation, and public relations. The third is the theme of strengthening the tridharma of higher education. In addition, UI has been holding the ZI Award UI competition since 2021, which involves all faculties/schools/vocational program, except FKM which was currently taking part in the ZI assessment at the national level.
In this competition, the assessment was carried out by Dikti-Ristek team so that it was neutral. Faculties/schools/vocational program were assessed for their reform initiatives in indicators that were exactly the same with the concept of ZI development at the national level. In a virtual ceremony held in November, the Faculty of Medicine of UI was announced as the winner and has the right to represent UI in an internal assessment at Kemendikbud-Ristek level in 2022. Referring back to the alleged corruption case at Unila which damaged state universities’ reputation in society, the implementation of ZI definitely does not guarantee the Unila corruption incident will not be repeated.
There are still some inputs to the ZI concept so that it is more contextual with state universities conditions. For example, the ZI concept is considered to place too much emphasis on reform in the aspect of public service, as well as aspects of organization and governance. In fact, tridharma activities of higher education, as their main activities, are not very visible. Tridharma of higher education activities consist of education and teaching, research and development, and community service.
Overseeing the Restoration Process
Even though it is still not optimal, the ZI initiative in state universities, which is encouraged by the Directorate General of Research and Technology through consistent and in-depth implementation, is crucial in preventing corruption. At the very least, the implementation of ZI will oversee the process of improving state universities governance at a macro level, which will later have a positive effect on the tridharma of higher education activities and reduce the space for corruption within the university environments. For example, with the provision of a survey on corruption perceptions, relevant stakeholders and the public can regularly provide input and monitor if corruption still occurs in state universities that implement ZI.
Thus, with the substantive and widespread implementation of ZI, the reputation of state universities as higher education institutions from future leaders of the nation and as a role model for public sector governance is expected to gradually recover in the public’s eyes. Opinion written by: Vishnu Juwono, the Head of Transformation, Risk Management and Evaluation Monitoring Bureau UI, the lecturer in Public Administration, the Faculty of Administrative Sciences UI.
Source: https://mediaindonesia.com/opini/523704/kasus-korupsi-unila-dan-urgensi-zona-integritas-di-ptn
