Elimination Of Obligations For The Preparation Of Screening And Concerns For The Fall Of Scientific Warring

Illustration - Elimination of thesis writing obligations is still controversial in the general public and education practitioners. (Freepic)

JAKARTA - The world of higher education in Indonesia is being warmed by the Regulation of the Minister of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology (Permen) Number 53 of 2023 concerning High Education Quality Guarantee. One of the most interesting public attention is that the Permen no longer requires a thesis as the only student graduation assessment.

Permen menyebutkan bahwa asesmen ketercapaian kepemerasan lulusan program terapan dapat melalui pemberian tugas akhir yang dapat berbentuk thesis, proto, proyek, proyek, atau bentuk tugas akhir lainnya yang jenis baik secara individu maupun kelompok; atau penerapan curric berbasis berbasis proyek atau bentuk pembelajaran lainnya yang jenis dan asesmen yang dapat menunjukkan ketercapaian kompingsi pempulan.

It should be understood that the new policy issued by the Minister of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology Nadiem Anwar Makariem is optional. This means that students may not make a thesis, but are replaced with other tasks that are equivalent to thesis.

"The final task can be in various forms, it can be a prototype and a project. It could be another form," said Nadiem.

The policy certainly invites mixed reactions. Education observer at Paramadina University, Totok Amin, positively welcomed Permen No 53 of 2023. According to him, with this Permen, students have more options to complete their final duties as a condition of graduation.

In my opinion, this is a positive thing because students are given a choice. With this ministerial regulation, it means giving more choices to prospective scholars. Apart from thesis, projects or other final tasks can be projected," said Totok Amin during a conversation with VOI.

In addition to giving more choices to determine the final task, this Permen also makes it easier for students who also work at the same time. When students do not make a thesis, graduation assessments are replaced with other tasks such as working on projects or creating prototypes according to their knowledge.

If students, for example, are busy working, their work experience can be given, there is no need to write a thesis. So this makes it easier, Totok added.

The Chancellor of Gadjah Mada University (UGM), Prof. Ova Emilia ensured that the government's policy of providing an option without a thesis as a condition for graduating would not reduce the quality of higher education. According to Ova, so far many have misunderstood the thesis. So far the thesis is considered the only form of student final duties. In fact, the final task can be realized in various forms of wealth according to the competence of the study program being carried out.

"In higher education there must be a final work, that final work can be in any form, one of which is a thesis. It could also be in the form of a report or project," said Ova, quoted by Antara.

An example is students who study art majors, which are more relevant if their final assignment is in the form of a work of art than a written thesis with only collect literature in the library.

"If he studies art, thesis? You could make a composition or maybe a statue as a work so it means the final work of a level of education," said Ova.

However, the abolition of thesis as the only requirement for student graduation also raises concerns from the Chancellor of the Islamic University of Indonesia, Fathul Wahid. According to Fathul, compiling a thesis based on research, developing a prototype, project, or final task is one of the efforts to ensure that students have good scientific writing skills. To get good scientific writing, an orderly, argumentative, and data-based basis is needed.

"Mampu menulis dengan baik merupakan salah satu indiksi bahwa seseorang memahami ide, konteks, atau tugas yang dikerjakan secara indal," kata Fathul.

When the thesis is no longer the only student graduation assessment, it is feared that the scientific procession of the Indonesian people will fade. In the end, what happened was that the younger generation would find it easier to trust information that was not based on data. This has even begun to be felt now, namely when the spread of information that is invalid and hoaxes spread very quickly.

Although hoax news is almost certainly not scientific, but because the scientific procession has faded, hoaxes are very easily believed to be wider. Not only by ordinary people, but also by experts by appealing to facts. A simple scientific argument can be interpreted as an attitude that questions everything, does not accept ideas without any evidence or facts and discipline using reason and mind.

"With this understanding, I am worried that our choice not to train the scientific writing skills of new scholars will have a bad impact on the fading of this nation's scientific heritage in the future. Hopefully my prediction is wrong," Fathul wrote.