Webinar SEAMEO-QS Higher Education (HE) Forum: Using Performance Insight to Build WCU in SEA was organized by The Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO). SEAMEO has promoted regional cooperation in education, science, and culture since 1965.

QS Higher Education is a global provider of information, analytics, and services for the higher education sector. The mission of QS Higher Education is to motivate everyone in the world to fulfill their full potential by fostering international mobility, educational achievement, and career development. QS has fulfilled this mission for 30 years and works with more than 1500 institutions. Everyone worldwide has surfed the internet about QS Higher Education and hit 79,000 searches.

The webinar states that institutions or universities usually have difficulty maintaining their rankings because they are more likely to receive rankings than trying to achieve rankings. It takes institutions with a long-term focus, strategic objectives, and usually those that go beyond these strategic objectives in a way that is not solely to increase their rankings but rather to demonstrate their distinctive identity and mission. The success story mentioned is the Bandung Institute of Technology.

According to Ben Sowter, Senior Vice President of QS Quacquarelli Symonds, ITB consistently improves its performance from year to year. ITB was ranked 461-470 in 2014 and has reached rank 303. ITB continues to improve its performance by focusing on ITB’s strongest indicator, the academic reputation indicator. This indicator is filled with a 5-year survey with responses reaching 130,000.

This academic reputation includes many variables such as the clarity of the brand, the distinctiveness of the institutional identity, how the institution treats educators and students, which leads to positive things, opportunities for collaboration, attractiveness to prospective students, and the level of workability of its alumni. “Although this is about academic reputation, we still see research results that are also interdependent with institutional performance,” said Sowter in the webinar.

Ben Sowter conveys several important points regarding the selection of ITB as an example of a success story of Southeast Asian universities, namely:

1. Choosing a long-term focus and real strategic goals.

2. Not seeing rankings as mere rankings, but rather investing in their identity and directing their institutions’ progress according to the standards they set.

3. Not focusing on one side of the ranking dimension but taking a strategic longitudinal approach.

4. Maintaining confidence and adherence to the path of progress that has been chosen as the right step for them.

He conveys a quote from Warren Buffet, “It takes 20 years to build reputation, but it takes 20 seconds to destroy one.” which means, “It takes 20 years to make a reputation but only 20 seconds to ruin it. So a university or institution that can maintain its reputation can definitely maintain effective and sustainable leadership, good governance, and a consistent strategy,” he said.

Responding to Ben Sowter’s view, the Rector of ITB, Prof. Reini Wirahadikusumah, commented that this achievement could be a joint introspection for all ITB people.

Reporter: Dheamyra Aysha Ihsanti

Translator: Billy Akbar Prabowo