UNAIR NEWS – The journey of Indonesian Literature Program Universitas Airlangga keeps showing a positive value. The enthusiasts of the program which is under the Faculty of Humanities (FIB) UNAIR are increasing every year. Therefore, the program officials then raise its quota for student candidates. According to the record, the quota was 100 students in early 2000, and it kept rising until 160 students in the 2016 selection period. Dra. Dwi Handayani, M.Hum., as the Head of Indonesian Literature Program UNAIR said that one of a program’s excellence can be defined from the number of enthusiasts and the available quota.

“We raised the quota because of the increasing number of Indonesian Literature enthusiasts from year to year, even 50% of student candidates place this program as their first choice,” she explained.

This best UNAIR’s Head of Program 2016 also mentioned about another excellence owns by the program she is in charge of for the second time this year; that is a demand for philology study. In her opinion, several Indonesian Literature programs in other universities have replaced philology study.

“Most specializations in other campuses are literature, linguistic, and culture. We maintain philology although there aren’t many enthusiasts. So we keep encouraging the students to be interested and the result is Thank God the increasing number of enthusiasts every year,” explained the woman who is familiarly called by Handa.

As with philology study specialization, Handa also explained that starting next year one of the courses related to philology study namely folklore or oral tradition will be a compulsory course. It is expected that this step will improve students’ understanding about the study which discuss about ancient scripts and oral tradition in the society.

“The solution that we chose is to make folklore course, which used to be optional, compulsory. Because now we have a laboratory in this FIB and also in Blitar,” she said.

International Cooperation

Learning from the experience of getting Accreditation A which was attained last year, Handa stated that a program’s excellence is also measured from its international cooperation. This encourages her to get along with Institut Alam and Tamadun Melayu (ATMA) Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) in applying Three Principles of Education which consist of education, research, and community service. In the field of education, Handa explained that in the future she wants to have lecturer staff whether from Indonesian Literature UNAIR or ATMA UKM to deliver public lecture or tuition to students of both parties. Moreover, Handa also wishes that besides lecturers there will also be student exchange.

“In the future, we hope UKM lecturers will be able to teach here, and vice versa. Moreover, in terms of research, we have made a commitment that one of our team members is an UKM lecturer, so there will be a kind of research collaboration,” she explained.

As with community service, Handa explained about an assisted village in Kemloko Village, Blitar. According to Handa, ATMA UKM party is very interested in the community service program which has been going on for four years. In the future, ATMA UKM party also wishes to send their students to join a field study which is hold annually in the village.

“We also suggest them to take along the students or lecturers of ATMA UKM who are studying at UNAIR later to the assisted village and they are very interested in the idea,” Handa concluded. (*)

Author: Nuri Hermawan
Editor:  Faridah Hari