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Olympiad-winners need govt support
Indonesia must support its most gifted young students in order to build a talented workforce in the future, a Indonesian Olympiad chairman says
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Indonesia must support its most gifted young students in order to build a talented workforce in the future, a Indonesian Olympiad chairman says.
Indonesian students took home three gold medals from the ninth Asian Physics Olympiad in Mongolia on Wednesday, defeated only by China with eight gold medals.
The medals add to a tally of over 50 gold medals already won by Indonesian students in international competitions over the last two years, nearly 50 percent of which were awarded in science and math Olympiads.
National Education Minister Bambang Sudibyo said the government has no firm programs to keep its world-class students at home to develop the nation.
"There's no problem if other countries take them. As long as they are patriots, they will do something for the sake of the nation," he told the press Wednesday after welcoming the successful students home from the Mongolian physics Olympiad.
"We're now living in a globalized world; there's no way we can do such a thing (as keeping the medal-winning students at home)."
The minister, however, acknowledged there should be an incentive to entice outstanding students to work and live in their homeland.
Indonesian Physics Olympiad team chairman Yohaness Surya suggested the government send students to the world's best universities to retain them for the future.
"I have written to the President and the education minister, calling on them to grant gold medal winners full scholarships at the world's best universities, such as Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology or Princeton," he said.
"By doing so, these children will be our country's assets. We can expect them to come back through, for example, a service contract mechanism," Yohaness said, adding that the education minister was likely to be positive about the proposal.
Indonesia should also be able to pay salaries equal to those offered by advanced nations in order to lure efficient workers home, he said.
"Pay them as much as they can earn from working in the United States, for example. I guarantee they will return home," he said, adding that local businesses were certainly able to afford such salaries.
Yohaness said the government's lack of support of Olympiad-winning students has meant most of them are now continuing their studies with support from other countries, including Singapore and Japan.
He said the success of Indonesian students in international competitions proved Indonesia had a talented future workforce.
"All that's left to do is see how the government can polish these remarkable students. The government has given us enough support in (international Olympiads), but we hope it can give more," Yohaness said.
