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Students must benefit from higher education reform: experts
President Joko âJokowiâ Widodo must reassure the countryâs 8 million university students that his decision to pool the management of research, technology and higher education affairs into one ministry would provide them with improved access to quality education, research and scholarship funding instead of organizational chaos, experts have said
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resident Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo must reassure the country's 8 million university students that his decision to pool the management of research, technology and higher education affairs into one ministry would provide them with improved access to quality education, research and scholarship funding instead of organizational chaos, experts have said.
Although the establishment of the Research and Technology and Higher Education Ministry ' which unifies the now-defunct Research and Technology Ministry and the Directorate General of Higher Education at the now-defunct Education and Culture Ministry ' could lead to some organizational turbulence, the government must make sure that students benefit most from the merger, education sociology professor Ravik Karsidi of Sebelas Maret State University (UNS) in Surakarta, Central Java, said.
'Soon after completing the [organizational] restructure, the ministry must include programs like scholarships and the recruitment of students from remote or poor regions on its priority list,' Ravik, who also chairs the Indonesian Rector Forum (FRI), told The Jakarta Post in Thursday.
'At the same time, the ministry's efforts to synergize higher education institutions and industry must also be directed at filling the gap between higher education output and industry demand for skilled labor.'
The rector of Malang Muhammadiyah University in East Java, Muhadjir Effendy, said he was expecting to see the merger encourage students to conduct quality research.
'The main purpose of university-based research is to provide students with a learning medium. So it focuses more on the [research] procedure, not the product,' he said.
'If 20 percent of this research can finally be implemented, it will be outstanding.'
Currently, there are 8 million students attending the country's 292 state universities and 3,176 private ones.
Jokowi, who was inaugurated as the country's seventh president last month, has decided to establish two ministries ' the Culture and Elementary and Secondary Education Ministry and the Research and Technology and Higher Education Ministry ' to translate his vision on the research and education sector. Jokowi has appointed the rector of Jakarta-based Paramadina University, Anies Baswedan, to lead the former and Semarang-based Diponegoro University economics professor M. Nasir, to lead the latter.
The inspector general of the now-defunct Education and Culture Ministry, Haryono Umar, said last week that the merger would potentially result in the postponement of domestic and international scholarship disbursements, as well as operational funds for universities, until April next year.
Both Ravik and Muhadjir, however, believed that the merger was necessary despite its short-term side effects.
'According to the triple-helix concept [of university-industry-government relationships], universities are the only parties capable of boosting the industry sector, as well as making it environmentally friendly and care about its social responsibility,' Ravik said.(+++)
