Between Development and Politics: The Decline of the Community Service Program in Indonesian Higher Education, 1960s–1970s

The 1961 official enactment of “community service” (CS) as one of the Indonesian higher education (HE) missions aimed to improve the welfare of the Indonesian society, among others, by eradicating illiteracy and poverty. However, the method for implementing CS depended heavily on the ideological orientation of the ruling political regimes. The present article examines why CS programs became marginalized in the management of Indonesian HE during the politically tumultuous years of the 1960s and 1970s. Employing a historical method and drawing upon data from university reports, newspaper articles, and government documents, this article argues that the implementation of CS programs took place asymmetrically with the nature of CS as a social mission. Political agendas of the different Indonesian governments systematically directed away the trajectories and targets of the CS program from its original mission of developing the welfare of the people. The CS programs, in practice, reflected the pragmatic political goals of the governments. Consequently, the Indonesian HE lost its transformative role in society. © 2024, Universitas Negeri Semarang. All rights reserved.