UNS – Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta initiates a measure responding to the Higher Education Directorate, the Minister of Education and Culture Circular Number 302/E.E2/KR/2020 dated 31 Maret 2020. The Circular was regarding the Learning Period and the Organization of Education Program During Coronavirus Outbreak. Following the Circular, UNS take initiative to provide 50,000 Rupiah phone credit for the students in order to support online lectures.
The Rector of UNS, Prof. Jamal Wiwoho said that the phone credit assistance is initially planned to be distributed as 10 GB internet data connection quota. “However, due to the variation of data package terms of use among the internet provider, for example when the students already have a data package and a new data package is transferred the remained package will vanish. Another problem is data package sometimes is provided for various purposes or can only be used on certain hour/time or only for social media access. Therefore, it is decided that the assistance will be delivered in the form of phone credit with an amount of 50,000 Rupiah,” said Prof. Jamal, Monday (13/4/2020).
The calculation basis for the UNS assistance, in order for all the students to get the 10 GB data quota using Rp 50,000 phone credit for Telkomsel provider can use the following steps, student access MyTelkomsel app, there they provide ‘Paket Ketengan’ and by choosing the 4th option the students can get 0.5 GB main quota for 2,000 Rupiah. Using this mechanism, for 25 office days, the phone credit assistance provided can get them 12.5 GB, which is more than the initial 10GB planned. As for the Indosat provider, the students can choose the ‘Freedom Internet’ package for 10 GB at 50,000 Rupiah valid for 30 days.
Prof. Jamal adds that for the distribution process/steps of the phone credit assistance are as follows, the students should first verify or updating their phone number in siakad.uns.ac.id. From this validation, UNS has collected 24,554 phone numbers that consist of 6 different providers. Credit will be sent to students’ phone numbers by each provider and the students can buy the internet package according to the data package offered by the provider.
The assistance, for Telkomsel provider, is started to be distributed since 6-10 April 2020 and has been successfully delivered to 10,462 users. There are 238 numbers that failed to receive the phone credit because the phone number used is a post-paid number and there are also expired numbers. “We are tracking those numbers and we will find the solution for this condition,” he added.
The distribution for Smartfren users is started from 6 April until 8 April 2020 and had successfully delivered to 1,360 users, with 2 failed numbers due to expired number. Next, Indosat, until 13 April 2020 at 12.09 AM, the assistance had delivered to 6,024 users, with 32 expired numbers. Meanwhile, for Axis, XL, and Three, the distribution process is still ongoing.
“The basic principle that being upheld in UNS in setting the phone credit assistance policy is accountable and efficient,” he concluded. Humas UNS/Dwi
