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View all search resultsWhat kind of leaders does Indonesia want?
While a public service academy has a place in the education ecosystem, nurturing future leaders that can navigate the country's positioning in the global arena of technology, innovation and business doesn't require building a whole new institution.
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Manager candidates of the Red and White Cooperatives march in full camo outfits on July 31, 2026, prior to attending the closing ceremony for the Defense Ministry’s Bachelor of Indonesian Development Drivers (SPPI) degree program at Halim Perdanakusuma Air Force Base in East Jakarta. (Antara/Bayu Pratama S.)
H
aving taught at Indonesian universities for several years as a foreign academic, I received the announcement of Universitas Republik Indonesia (University of the Republic of Indonesia; URI) with deep concern.
On July 22, President Prabowo Subianto installed a retired Air Force marshal to lead a brand-new institution meant to forge the country's future leaders of government and state-owned enterprises.
Officials soon confirmed the real scale of the ambition: not one campus but 10. The first would rise on a former oil palm plantation in Bogor, West Java, funded by the state budget. The model, they said, was loosely borrowed from France's elite civil service academy, Institut National du Service Public (INSP).
URI is, first of all, an expensive solution to a problem Indonesia does not actually have. The country already possesses universities capable of producing serious national leaders. The University of Indonesia, Gadjah Mada University, the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) and others have done so for decades, yet many are currently struggling.
M. Zainuddin, former rector of State Islamic University (UIN) Malang, pointed out in a widely shared op-ed that Indonesia's research output trailed its neighbors badly, sitting at around 395 researchers per million people compared to 4,000-8,000 in advanced economies. Meanwhile, research and development spending remained stuck near 0.2-0.3 percent of gross domestic product.
His conclusion was blunt: Money should go toward closing this gap “instead of adding a new university that will burden the state budget”.
If the goal is better leadership, the faster route is strengthening the solid universities Indonesia already has, not building a parallel system created by decree from scratch.
