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Indonesians studying in Australia have urged the government to set up a clear system of degree equivalency after many found that their Australian degrees were not recognized at home.

Mohamad Fahmi, interim chairman of the Indonesian Student Association of Australia (PPIA), said his group wanted the Ministry of National Education to resolve the four-year-old issue.

He said that many of his friends who had graduated from Australian universities had run into problems when applying for jobs back home, especially in government agencies.

“Some who have finished undergraduate programs here and returned home with high expectations are disappointed,” Fahmi told the Jakarta Globe by telephone from Australia.

“It’s because our government only classifies them as holders of associate degrees.”

The problem involves a disparity between credit points required for degrees in each country.

Fasli Jalal, the ministry’s director general of higher education, said that based on Indonesia’s national education system, a minimum of 144 credit points (SKS) were required for bachelor-level degrees, whereas Australian degrees only required 120 points.

Australian universities commonly offer two programs: honors degrees and regular, or bachelor, degrees. The first requires four years of study and at least 144 credit points, while regular programs are spread over three years and require 120 credit points.

Fasli said that about 95 percent of Indonesian students in Australia were taking the regular program for undergraduate degrees. The ministry estimates there are 14,000 Indonesians studying in various Australian universities.

“It is not fair for university students studying in Indonesia who have to finish a minimum of 144 credits, while other people who studied overseas, with smaller credits, ask for equal approval,” Fasli said.

Presently, students who graduate from undergraduate programs at Australian universities take an additional year at an Indonesian institution to fulfill the 144 credit point requirement. After that, they are officially holders of recognized bachelor degrees.

“The government has missed the point,” PPIA’s Fahmi said.

“If our government is still concerning itself with only total number of credits, I think they have just missed the point.”

However, the ministry said it was working to resolve the problem, cooperating with its Australian counterpart to develop a compatible qualification framework.

“After all, graduates who apply for jobs with multinational companies find no problems with their degrees,” Fasli said. “It’s only with government agencies they strike trouble, which insist on 144 credit points.”

Shannon Smith, the education counsellor at the Embassy of Australia in Jakarta, said that Australia needed to work more closely with Indonesia on a range of education issues for mutual benefit.

Smith said that the comprehensive Australian Qualifications Framework linked all Australian degrees to a common standard and was a highly visible, quality-assured national system of recognition. AQF qualifications were recognized around Australia and also by other countries.