UNS — The International Office of Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta held Go International! Webinar on “The Role of Students and Staffs in Strengthening Higher Education Internationalization” on Tuesday (1/9/2020).
The webinar was held through Zoom Meeting and opened by the Vice-Rector for Partnership and Planning Affairs UNS, Prof. Sajidan. In his remark, Prof. Sajidan emphasized the importance of students and staff roles in internationalization efforts. “It (internationalization efforts) require a significant role of the academic members, not only the Faculty Members but also the academic staffs and students to understand their respective roles in the internationalization efforts. Internationalization at home is one of the efforts taken by UNS to promote this mindset,” he conveyed.
The International Webinar invited three speakers, M. Taufiq al Makmun from UNS Javanologi Institute, Fairuz Muchtar Bawaze’er the Head for Putra International Centre, Universiti Putra Malaysia and Murni Ramli, the Deputy of UNS International Office. The international webinar specifically discussing the Cross-Cultural Understanding for University’s Internationalization, and UPM’s and UNS’s Experiences on higher education internationalization. The webinar was joined by 80 participants that consist of staffs and students from UNS and other universities. As the first speaker, Taufiq al Makmun discussed the importance of cross-cultural understanding in the internationalization efforts. “Cross-Cultural Understanding is the basic fundamental for a university in conducting partnership and collaboration with other universities globally. At least four global aspects need to be understood, among others, cultural differences, values and norms differences, behavioral difference, and interpretational differences,” he added.
Fairuz Muchtar Bawaze’er as the second speaker shared UPM experience in higher education internationalization efforts. One of the interesting steps taken by UPM was they have four Capacity Building programs, one of which is Professional Training. Professional Training is focused on developing soft skill and hard skill at the local and international scope. The target is to provide annual training for all staffs in the field of human resources and hard skill. Besides that, he also explained their efforts in encouraging students to go international. “Each year, we provided aids or scholarship through special funds allocated for students who want to join the international program starting from 500 to 15,000 Ringgit Malaysia, depending on the type of the programs, duration, and target country,” he explained.
The last speaker, Murni Ramli explained the efforts taken by UNS to achieve internationalization. “One of our programs is UNS Global Talent started in 2017. This program aims to provide international insight to educational staff to be able to provide international level services,” she described. “As for students, UNS has UNS Global Challenge program which provides a scholarship for students to join internship, short-long term course, international conference, community services, and joint research,” she added.
Go International! Webinar is a series of events from UNS Global Talent which is conducted online this year. Humas UNS
Reporter: Ratri Hapsari
Editor: Dwi Hastuti
