[3] The latter existed for the most of 1950s and was responsible in enrolling former student soldiers who fought in the Indonesian National Revolution to universities and managing foreign scholarships.

[4] The coordination bureau was chaired by Soegiono Djoened Poesponegoro, who was the dean of the medicine faculty of the Hasanuddin University.

The lack of funding made rectors and heads of universities felt neglected, and they proposed the higher education bureau to be upgraded to a department under a minister.

However, the minister of education and culture Prijono was strongly against this notion, as he considered that Indonesia's multiparty nature could result in differing interpretations of government policies.

Mashuri Saleh, who was previously the deputy minister for higher education, was named as the director general.

[24][25] Nizam, the dean of Gadjah Mada University's engineering faculty, was named as the acting director general on 20 January and assumed the position permanently on 21 July.

In addition to the introduction of a dual system, consisting of academic and professional streams, 3 program levels in higher education were introduced, i.e.

The economic downturn caused by the sudden drop of oil price had prevented the student enrollment for further expansion.

An early attempt to introduce reform in higher education by issuing a new Government Regulation (PP) 30/1990 did not achieve the expected outcome due to inadequate public and political support.

The strategy comprises the following three core programs, implementation of the new paradigm in higher education management; improvement of relevance and quality; and geographical and social equity.

[33] All of a sudden, in 1997 East Asian countries, including Indonesia, experienced the worst ever economic crisis, followed by the fall of its political and social system.

The fall of the authoritarian government creates euphoria in almost every sector that the stability previously taken for granted has currently become a luxury.

Meanwhile, a funding mechanism based on the new paradigm concept (the first core program) has been implemented since 1995 and the proportion of DIP allocated under this scheme increased to 25% in 2002.

All competitive funding schemes under this concept take improvement of quality and relevance (the second core program) as their primary objective.

The third core program, expansion of enrolment to achieve geographical and social equity, however, does not meet the expectation due to the financial constraint.

[33] The current organization of the directorate general is established by the Decree of the Minister of Higher Education, Science, and Technology, dated 31 December 2024.