[OPINION] Don’t Just Cause a Drop of Indigo to Change…
Genetic Mutation
A feeling of joy and gratitude briefly crossed my heart, as the accreditation rating was restored to excellence and I was told I was ranked 15th nationally, seemed to vanish instantly when news broke that the professorship of Lambung Mangkurat University (ULM) would be revoked. As senior lecturers, we are deeply disturbed by this news and pray that it won’t be just a drop of indigo that spoils the whole pot of milk. But our annoyance is not enough; we have a serious reflection to share.
There is another major, fundamental issue that strongly frames this issue: genetic mutation—sex change—in higher education institutions , not only at ULM, but at other universities in general. The opinion of Prof. Dr. Winarno Surachmad, MSc. Ed. (2009)—an education expert—several years ago very aptly describes this sex change. He said, “Examined from its mission, national education is increasingly emerging as a meaningless name. Since the beginning of independence, the field of education, honored as the backbone of development and the key to progress, has proven to be nothing but a rotten bone, and a key incapable of unlocking the door to progress, because the concerns of education administrators are limited to formalities and shallow traditions.” He wrote this opinion in his book National Education: Strategy and Tragedy.
The title of this book implies that national education has changed its gender from a strategy for national glory to a tragedy for the nation and state. The most serious impact of this gender change is its shift in orientation: when the world of education, especially higher education, begins to be unable to avoid the offers or traps of market demand because it has become a center for providing the service industry, it is not impossible that it will become trapped in corporate logic and experience McDonaldization—fast food and fast food for financial gain—which could lead to a loss of control in upholding education’s essential and noble role as a process of emancipation, liberation, humanization, and human transcendence. In other words, the strength of this corporate logic will, sooner or later, lead higher education institutions to the McDonaldization process.
Universities Die
This is a work by Peter Fleming (2021). Its full title is Dark Academia: How Universities Die. The case study is indeed based on experiences in the USA. However, certain parts of his ideas can also be applied to the gender reassignment of universities in this country. He states that modern universities today “…are in a state of death,” being eroded by neoliberalism, whose vision is the commercialization or marketization of higher education services based on corporate or market logic.
According to him, since the 1980s, universities have changed their gender into business enterprises obsessed with greater financial revenue, increasing numbers of graduates, and achieving the highest accreditation scores, although sometimes through dishonest means (National Education Integrity Assessment Survey, 2004). The terms “Science for Sale,” “School for Sale,” or “Academic Title for Sale”—the works of several other experts—perfectly illustrate this trend. The more interested a study program is, the more students it accepts, even though the program makes no significant contribution to the development of science. The resulting theses, dissertations, and theses ultimately become mere piles of archives, silent witnesses to the victims of neoliberalism. He continued, “Higher education institutions” have transformed from Centers of Education (read: guardians of the vitality of moral virtue) into Edu-Factories driven by corporate interests—as job providers—and even by global capitalism as its backbone in developing countries (Peter Phillips, 2018 and 2024). In practice, universities are no different from training centers or Vocational Training Centers (BLK) whose primary task is simply to provide a ready-to-use workforce.
The Toxic University
Modern universities in the state of death and the gender reassignment of universities to edu-factories are two sides of the same coin. The link between the two is further clarified by John Smyth’s (2017) work, “The Toxic University: Zombie Leadership, Academic Rock Stars and Neoliberal Ideology.” The manifestation of the negative impacts of neoliberalism is also seen in or influences other aspects, namely the leadership of universities, the excessive fondness and joy of celebrating quantitative achievements, for example in scientific publications, seminars and conferences, the number of doctors who are often poor in theory and professors whose expertise is also unclear, the number of graduates, IP, and accreditation, although scientifically all of these often do not reflect the quality of education. It is nothing more and not less than a symbol of prestige (read: not achievement) and the fulfillment of market values.
Smyth highlights the leadership factor of universities in his work, “Zombie Leadership.” Zombie Leadership refers to leadership that is hollow or lacking a genuine educational vision. Instead, they become patriotic defenders of capitalist or neoliberal values such as efficiency, effectiveness, and innovation, even at the expense of the nobility of morality and ethics, and the university’s identity as a guardian of noble values. Jerry Z. Muller beautifully describes universities’ fascination with quantitative performance in his work, “The Tyranny of Metrics” (2019).
“The Academic Barbarism”
Michael O’Sullivan’s (2016) work, “Academic Barbarism, Universities and Inequality,” echoes Surachmad, Fleming, and Smyth’s thoughts on the detrimental impact of neoliberalism or capitalism on universities. Accompanying the major shift from teaching universities to research universities to vocational universities, universities have experienced a disorientation in values; shifting from the pendulum of the toxic university to academic barbarism driven by market value, economic profit, and a preoccupation with quantitative performance that often deviates from the principles of how universities should be managed according to their noble vision, as outlined by Surachmad above.
O’Sullivan added that the operation of academic barbarism in universities, directly or indirectly, perpetuates social inequality (universities contribute to and sustain inequality). Instead of helping lower-middle-class families achieve horizontal mobility, it systematically widens the gap. Many children from lower-middle-class families cannot afford the increasingly unaffordable tuition fees, especially for “springtime” university programs. The Net Enrollment Rate for higher education is consistently lower than at previous levels.
Is There Still Hope?
Absolutely! There are still quite a few conscientious people at ULM. Never give up! ULM is the nation’s capital and a cultural asset for the Banua people. Let’s care for, protect, and guard this asset from the fraudulent practices of a handful of people—students, lecturers, masters, doctors, or professors—who are lackeys of capitalism or neoliberalism, seeking only a living at ULM but failing to provide for it, even with a small contribution. Hopefully, this is helpful.
By: Syakrani and Sandra Bhakti Mafriana
Lecturer, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences,
Lambung Mangkurat University, Banjarmasin
Published in Radar Banjarmasin, October 6, 2025
