REGULATORY REVIEW ON LAM INDEPENDENCE AND ACCOUNTABILITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION ACCREDITATION IN INDONESIA

Abstract

The higher education accreditation system in Indonesia has undergone changes with the introduction of the Independent Accreditation Institute (LAM) as an independent body responsible for assessing the quality of study programs. However, the independence and accountability of LAM is still a debate, especially related to government intervention in setting accreditation standards and reporting mechanisms for accreditation results to the Ministry of Education and Culture. This research aims to analyze the extent to which LAM has autonomy in ensuring the quality of higher education and how its accountability mechanism to the government is. The research method used is literature review by analyzing regulations, academic journals, and relevant policy reports. Data is collected from national and international sources that discuss the independence and accountability of accreditation bodies. The results of the study show that LAM is not yet fully independent, because the accreditation standards made still need to get approval from the government. In addition, the automatic accreditation extension policy reduces the role of LAM in assessing the quality of study programs. In terms of accountability, LAM is required to report accreditation results to the government, but the reporting mechanism is still not uniform and is not supervised by external audits. Thus, although LAM is designed as an independent institution, in practice there is still control from the government that limits the authority of LAM, as well as an accountability system that still needs to be improved to be more transparent and accountable.