Research, Technology, and Higher Education (Ristekdikti) Minister, Muhammad Nasir, has encouraged Indonesian universities to start implementing distance and online courses. He argues this is a crucial step to compete in the era of industrial revolution while providing more opportunities for people to access the higher education.

He opines local institutions should not oppose the move as the competition could be a motivation for them to continue improving education quality as well as innovating and changing for the better. “The presence of foreign universities does not necessarily decrease the quality of Indonesian universities,” he adds.

Aside from optimizing the development of information technology, Nasir also encourages higher education to advance student competence in foreign languages, especially English. In the era where people are increasingly connected, language literacy is considered to be the primary asset for stepping into the world.

The Dean of Faculty of Economics and Business at UGM (Universitas Gadjah Mada), Eko Suwardi, Ph.D., also expressed a similar idea. He explained the school encourages students to improve their language proficiency, especially for international program students, to prepare themselves for facing global competition.

One of the strategies is encouraging students to apply for student exchange programs or summer courses abroad, and inviting international students to participate in learning activities at UGM. “I believe students should gain adequate international exposure. This aims to increase their competitiveness and prepare them for the future,” said Eko.

Besides UGM, other universities have been considering applying blended learning. For example, Atma Jaya Catholic University in Jakarta plans to apply blended learning to a couple of courses using MOOC.

Ristekdikti announced in July 2017 that the Government allowed joint / dual degree programmes delivered through blended delivery. Blended delivery is defined as a programme in which 50 percent of a course is delivered face-to-face (ideally delivered by an Indonesian university) and the remaining 50 percent is delivered online (ideally by an overseas university). This opportunity can be further explored by the UK Universities.

Sources:

https://ugm.ac.id/en/news/16772-research.and.technology.minister.encoura...

Face to face meeting with the Deputy Director of Higher Education Cooperation at Directorate for Higher Education Institutional Enhancement, at the Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education, Republic of Indonesia.