A New Roadmap for Lecturer Careers: Understanding Regulation No. 52 of 2025

Ahmad Tholabi Kharlie
(Professor at UIN Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta,
Member of the Higher Education Council, Ministry of Higher Education, Science, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia)

Jakarta – Regulatory changes are often seen as merely revisions of articles and clauses. Yet in higher education, regulatory reform touches the core of the academic ecosystem: how the lecturer profession is defined, how careers are built, and how welfare is secured.

At this point, Ministerial Regulation of the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, and Technology No. 52 of 2025 on the Profession, Career, and Income of Lecturers must be read as a new roadmap for Indonesian lecturers. It provides normative and strategic direction for strengthening the academic profession. This regulation officially replaces Ministerial Regulation of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology No. 44 of 2024, in response to the need to strengthen lecturer governance amid the dynamics of the national higher education system.

This change marks an effort to consolidate regulations to clarify the relationship between the profession, career, and income of lecturers within a unified and sustainable framework.

The Pillars of Lecturer Careers

One of the main strengths of Regulation No. 52 of 2025 is its consistency in building lecturer careers on three main pillars: profession, career, and income. These three aspects are systematically regulated and interconnected, as illustrated in the lecturer career roadmap disseminated by the Directorate General of Higher Education.

First, the professional pillar reaffirms the status of lecturers as professional educators. The regulation clarifies the distinction between permanent and non-permanent lecturers, with objective indicators such as a minimum workload of 12 credit units, fulfillment of planned and monitored tridharma performance, and mandatory registration in the Higher Education Database (PDDikti). This clarification is crucial to end the ambiguity of lecturer status that has long affected career certainty and welfare rights.

Second, the career pillar is regulated through performance management and academic rank promotion mechanisms. The regulation establishes the ranks of assistant expert, lecturer, associate professor, and professor, complete with a tiered development pattern.

Promotion is no longer viewed merely as an administrative advancement but as a process based on Lecturer Performance Indicators (IKD) set by the minister, with room for universities to add contextual indicators aligned with their institutional vision.

Third, the income pillar is regulated more comprehensively. In addition to base salary and attached allowances, the regulation consolidates various forms of income—professional allowances, functional allowances, special allowances, honorary allowances for professors, and additional benefits—into a clear legal framework. Even for non-civil servant lecturers, the principle of equalization of professional allowances is emphasized, provided certification and performance requirements are met.

Compared to Regulation No. 44 of 2024, several fundamental differences stand out. First, the definition and status of permanent lecturers are now formulated more firmly and operationally. Previously more normative, Regulation No. 52 of 2025 provides concrete parameters that directly affect promotion rights and allowances.

Second, the academic promotion mechanism is expanded and clarified. In addition to regular promotion, an accelerated promotion mechanism for lecturers with extraordinary achievements is explicitly introduced to be further regulated through technical guidelines. This signals a shift from seniority toward academic meritocracy.

Third, there is strengthened attention to the income of non-civil servant lecturers, especially in the mechanism for equalizing professional allowances. For private universities and state universities with legal entity status, this regulation signals that the state remains present to ensure fair remuneration, even when lecturers are not under the civil service regime.

Fourth, the regulation of emeritus professors becomes more systematic. Retired professors may continue contributing at private universities until the age of 75, with recognition as permanent lecturers for quality assurance purposes and access to state-funded research and community service grants. This reflects the state’s respect for intellectual capital that should not end at formal retirement.

Impact on Lecturer Careers

At its core, Regulation No. 52 of 2025 operationalizes the mandate of Law No. 14 of 2005 on Teachers and Lecturers and Law No. 12 of 2012 on Higher Education. Both laws position lecturers as professionals with academic responsibilities, rights to decent income, and obligations to uphold the quality of the tridharma.

In this context, strengthening performance indicators and certification can be understood as part of ensuring professional accountability in line with modern higher education governance principles.

The state recognizes lecturer status while ensuring that recognition is accompanied by fair and measurable evaluation mechanisms. This normative framework is then translated into career pathways and promotion systems.

Normatively, the regulation provides clearer and more transparent career paths. Lecturers can clearly see what is required for promotion, which performance indicators are assessed, and who holds the authority to evaluate and determine rank at each level. Such clarity is essential to build a culture of long-term career planning among lecturers.

In terms of welfare, the regulation strengthens the link between performance and income. Professional and honorary allowances are positioned as incentives based on workload fulfillment and performance indicators. This aligns with public accountability demands in the use of state budgets.

For lecturers at private universities and state universities with legal entity status, the affirmation that salaries must exceed minimum living standards, along with the equalization scheme for non-civil servant professional allowances, marks an important step toward structural fairness. However, this normative fairness requires institutional courage from universities and governing bodies to consistently adjust internal policies.

At this stage, the positive impact of the regulation largely depends on institutional readiness: continuous professional development, fair and measurable performance evaluation, and structured career mentoring. Without these prerequisites, the regulation risks remaining merely a normative text.

Several Notes

For the government, following the issuance of Regulation No. 52 of 2025, consistent derivative policies are needed, especially technical guidelines for accelerated promotion and lecturer performance indicators, to avoid multiple interpretations.

For universities, this regulation demands a cultural shift in human resource governance. Career development can no longer be reactive; it must be systematically designed through measurable lecturer development plans. Additional institutional indicators must not become counterproductive or add administrative burdens without academic value.

For lecturers, this regulation is an opportunity to reclaim the meaning of the profession as a path of service grounded in academic excellence. Career planning, research consistency, and academic integrity are key to navigating the roadmap with dignity.

Ultimately, Regulation No. 52 of 2025 offers a strategic opportunity to restructure lecturer careers in a more fair, transparent, and quality-oriented manner. Its success depends on the commitment of all stakeholders to implement it consistently as an instrument of academic administrative transformation.

With shared commitment, this framework has the potential to become a solid foundation for strengthening the dignity of the lecturer profession and the future of Indonesian higher education.

This article was published in Detik on Monday, January 19, 2026.