Jakarta (VNA) – Indonesia’s government is implementing a plan to to turn universities into centres of research and innovation - an important driving force to promote the building of quality human resources for the future, according to Minister of Higher Education, Science, and Technology Brian Yuliarto.
Speaking at a meeting with hundreds of rectors from state universities (PTN) and private universities (PTS) on March 13, Yuliarto informed that the government has allocated 2 trillion IDR (117 million USD) to support universities in this regard.
The official said Indonesian government aims to bring the country to be on par with developed countries and escape the middle-income trap. He also stated that the government plans to improve lecturers' quality by increasing the number of doctoral graduates.
According to the minister, Indonesia currently has 4,416 universities, consisting of 125 state universities, 2,812 private universities, 1,309 religious universities, and 170 Higher Education Service Institutions Region V.
Meanwhile, the number of active students across Indonesia has reached 9.96 million, with a total of 303,067 lecturers teaching at various universities, he added.
However, only 25% of lecturers at universities have completed their doctoral programmes, Yuliarto said. Therefore, the government will increase the number of doctoral graduate students and make it one of the priority programmes.
According to Yuliarto, the Indonesian government has also launched the Garuda Programme (Sekolah Garuda) at four centres for developing nation’s best talents, in order to build high quality human resources, meeting global recruitment needs./.
