UNAIR NEWS – The focus of Board of Trustees Assembly of eleven universities acting as legal entity (PTN BH) among other things was on government support related to PTN BH to achieve World Class University (WCU). PTN BH status from universities was expected to accelerate them to be World Class University.
General Directorate of Science, Technology Resources and Higher Education Prof. Ali Ghufron Mukti, M.Sc., Ph.D who was present for the assembly emphasized the government’s commitment to support the universities to reach Top 500 World Universities. In his opinion, the best way to be a world class university is by improving university’s scientific publications.
“There are many lecturers who are still ‘dormant’,” he said while reminding that Indonesia is still way behind other countries such as Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand on the quantity of scientific publications.
The professor from FK UGM also critized some professors who were less productive after they had been conferred as professors.
“We have sent memos to rectors to facilitate professors to stay productive,” he added. His division will not be reluctant to reduced funding to university which did not heed the memo.
In his opinion, lecturers should not be busy with administrative matters as it would lessen their time to conduct research, and finally reduce their productivity in publishing scientific publications.
In the occasion, he also reminded universities to not only be the agents of education but they also have obligations to be put the economy in motion through their various researches.
The man who was the Vice Minister of Health also revealed that the government this year had allocated some fund to recruit foreign researching lecturers for universities.
“2016 State Budget (APBN) has allocated for 40 people, and in the revised state budget (APBN-P) has been modified to 100 people,” he said. According to him, the foreign researching lecturers later must have excellent standards so their coming will give positive effects to the universities. They were expected to collaborate with local lecturers to produce quality researches which later improve the scientific publications. (*)
Author: Yeano Andhika
