Dear Dr. Allan Goodman, President of Institute of International Education,
Distinguished Board members of IIE,
Chair of Henry Kaufman Prize,
Honorable guests, ladies and gentlemen,
Assalamu’alaikum wr.wb., a very good afternoon to all of you.
Dr. Henry Kissinger’s letter came as a great surprise, it is a great honor for me to be selected as the winner of Henry Kaufman Prize for 2010. I would like to convey my deepest appreciation to the Institute of International Education and the jury for the Henry Kaufman Prize for granting me this award.
Now, I stand before you to express my sincere gratitude and to share with you some thought on preparing our future citizens for the world peace and prosperity through bilateral collaboration.
Honorable guests, ladies and gentlemen,
We have seen the disappearance of walls and barriers across countries with the rapid development of information, communication and transportation technology. The world is fastly shrinking and becoming more accessible to more people so that boundaries between countries are getting more transparent economically, socially, politically and culturally. The movement and mobility of people across boundaries effortlessly becomes part of our life. Globalization is an inevitable process that we cannot avoid and therefore we have to prepare ourselves and our future generations to ride on this big wave. It brings people with different languages, cultures, customs and histories together in the same space and time.
To some people, globalization creates a cultural shock at home, anxiety and discontent, and even causes the emergence of radicalism due to the insecure feeling and inability to apprehend the rapid changes taking over values and traditions. For that very reason, education that brings in the international and multicultural perspective is very important. Education, especially higher education as one of the spearheads in the development of human intellectual capital, has to be at the forefront in preparing its graduates to become productive and constructive global citizens equipped with the needed skills, knowledge and ability to work in a global context. We have to prepare graduates with creativity and life-long learning skills needed by tomorrow's society, well-equipped with good understanding of global issues and exposed into a multicultural and inclusive atmosphere, to become a responsible citizen of a peaceful and prosperous world. It is along this line of thought, that I encourage student mobility across country, in particular through bilateral partnership.
Honorable guests, ladies and gentlemen,
Students’ mobility across national boundaries is not a new phenomenon, however we now observe the increasing trend of cross-boundaries students. Bilateral collaboration, such as U.S.-Indonesia, is an important instrument to achieve those goals. Our bilateral ties in education, higher education in particular, dates back to the early stage of Indonesia’s independence. When the Dutch professors left Indonesia after the independence, U.S. professors came to share their knowledge and fill the gaps in our newly established higher education institutions. At the same time, we sent our best staff to study in the best universities in the United States.
U.S.-trained intellectuals who returned in the late 1960s have shaped the development of Indonesia in the following decades. Alumni from U.S. universities have a major share in the high economic growth and early modernization of Indonesia. U.S. universties used to be the main destination of our students, at its peak not less than 14,000 Indonesians study in the United States. Unlike students from other countries, most Indonesians who study abroad return home to practice what they have learned and develop their professional career.
However, since early 2000 the number of Indonesians studying in U.S. universities has decreased due to many factors. First, nowadays many countries are offering international programs for overseas students very competitively. Second, the cost to send student to U.S. is relatively more expensive than to other countries. Third, obtaining a visa from U.S. is considered by many as not easy. Those are some of the issues that need to be addressed if we want to see more Indonesian students study in the best U.S. universities. We also hope to see more institutional collaboration between universities from our two countries and reciprocally more U.S. students and staff come to Indonesia. Through people-to-people exchange and interaction, a long-lasting friendship can be fostered.
Honorable guests, ladies and gentlemen,
The government has strived hard to provide basic education for all, to improve education availability, to improve accessibility and affordability of education, to improve education quality, relevance and competitiveness, and last but not the least, to strengthen the governance and management and accountability of education establishment.
The amendment of our constitution has mandated the allocation of minimum 20% of national budget for education. With the improved funding, Indonesia managed to achieve nine years compulsory basic education for all. Currently our elementary schools cater to more than 31 million children. While at the junior high school there are 11.5 million students and 8.2 million students at the senior high school. While at tertiary education 5.3 million students are catered to. Altogether there are more than 268,000 schools from elementary up to university levels.
Not only in quantity, we also seriously address the issue of quality. Currently we are upgrading 1.8 million out of 3.4 million teachers through quality and qualification improvement and facilitate all of them to take teachers’ certification. Having the certificate, the basic salary of public and private school teacher will be doubled.
Honorable guests, ladies and gentlemen,
It is strongly believed that education, especially higher education is capable of and very potential to contribute significantly to the nation’s competitiveness. The nation’s competitiveness can only be achieved under the framework of strong character of its individual citizens and the society. At higher education level, besides honing students with the technical edges for globally competitive life, it should also contribute to the process of shaping a democratic, civilized and inclusive society, maintaining national integration through its role as a moral force, and act as the bearer of public conscience.
As Indonesia, the largest Muslim population in the world, is transforming itself and become the third largest democratic country and modernizing its economy, the role of higher education in the construction of knowledge-based economy while contributing to the development of democratic society is stronger than ever. Its contribution to the knowledge-driven economic growth and poverty reduction is carried out through its capacity to train qualified and adaptable work force, generate new knowledge to increase the nation’s competitiveness based on local wisdom and diversity of resources as well as access and adapt global knowledge to local use.
We are very glad that in the recent Global Competitiveness Report published by the World Economic Forum, Indonesia has significantly improved its rank from 54 last year to 44 this year. Indonesia has also become the only ASEAN country to be part of the G20 with the 16th largest economic scale. Despite recent global economic crisis, Indonesia as the fourth largest population manages to boost a positive growth and is among the fastest growing country in the world.
Demographically, we are witnessing a window of opportunity opening itself. Between now and 2045, the dependancy ratio of our population will reach its minimum at around 46% by 2030. If the economic growth can be maintained, many experts including Pricewaterhouse predict that Indonesia’s economy will be among the top five in size by 2050.
Honorable guests, ladies and gentlemen,
As I already illustrated, we are now at a very important stage of Indonesia’s development. Education, especially higher education, will be key to the realization of our dream. Therefore I reiterate the importance of internationalizing our higher education through bilateral collaboration.
To encourage more Indonesian students to study abroad in the best universities, our government has provided scholarships and other programs. Every year, in addition to the ongoing program, at least 1,000 new overseas scholarships are offered to our lecturers to study for a Master or PhD degree abroad. We also offer scholarships for our in-country PhD candidates to spend one term in an overseas university to give them some international exposure.
Senior staff who had taken their PhD many years ago also need to be recharged. For that purpose we provide them with academic recharging travel grants, a kind of sabbatical leave in overseas university for senior staff.
Our government also allocated international competitive research grant to encourage international research collaboration. From 2008 to 2010, Indonesian government had spent not less than USD $6 million for various scholarships to the U.S. alone and the trend is still increasing. In term of the number of students, in the past three years there were only 56 Master and PhD students go to the U.S. universities as compared to 594 to Australian universities and 244 to UK universities. However, in total for the overall program (scholarship, sandwich and academic recharging) there were 534 scholars go to U.S. universities, which is half of the number of scholars that go to Australian universities. We have to further encourage this exchange.
Indonesian government also provides scholarships for Americans to study in Indonesia. In 2011, we have tripled the number of Dharmasiswa (scholarships for international students). Last year only 46 U.S. students applied for the scholarship, 32 accepted and only 14 finally went to Indonesia. I kindly invite U.S. students to apply to the program. Only through people-to-people interaction, real friendship can be established. Through international friendship and mutual respect and understanding, we can better achieve the world peace and prosperity.
Honorable guests, ladies and gentlemen,
Finally, once again I thank IIE for awarding me this year’s Kaufman Prize. The promotion and expansion of bilateral programs in higher education, the establishment of joint science and technology research priorities, as well as building capacity at higher education in Indonesia to study abroad which have been the foundation for awarding me this prize are collective efforts that I happened to be part of.
The continuous support from the Department of State and IIE have played a major role in making our programs’ achievement. The award reminds me that there is still a lot to be done to further strengthen the ties between our two countries in developing higher education partnerships. As a fastly growing developing country, we have a lot to learn from the States, therefore your continuous support and collaboration to improve the education for our children to prepare them to become competitive global citizens is very much appreciated.
May God bless us. Thank you.
Wassalamu’alaikum w.w.
Professor Fasli Jalal
Vice Minister of National Education