'Academic world must use freedom responsibly'

'Academic world must use freedom responsibly'

JAKARTA (JP): President Soeharto said yesterday that the
academic world needs to exercise its freedom responsibly to churn
out new ideas and proposals for the benefit of the nation.

"The world of higher learning is the center of activities
where new and fresh initiatives are produced for the advancement
of the nation," Soeharto said at the inauguration of a new campus
at the state-run University of Andalas in Padang, West Sumatra.

"These new and fresh initiatives will come easier in an open
and free, as well as responsible, academic world," he added.

The government, while maintaining that academic liberty should
always be respected, has repeatedly warned in the past that it
would not tolerate any attempts to turn the country's university
campuses into political hotbeds as they were in the 1960s and
1970s. Many students continue to argue that the policy of
depoliticizing campus activities is not consistent with the
concept of academic freedom.

Soeharto said yesterday that all university students should
make the most of their university time to attain the highest
achievements possible in order to answer the challenges that they
and the country will face in the 21st century.

"Use the allotted time wisely and stay away from activities
that are of no use," he said.

The higher education world, the President said, should also be
seen as a vehicle to develop nationalist values because the
universities take students that come from all corners of the
archipelago.

"Very often we find some university campuses in the country
becoming a miniature of Indonesia, with students from different
ethnic groups, religions, languages and backgrounds converging in
one place."

The President in his speech recognized West Sumatra as one of
the provinces in Indonesia that has always held education,
especially science, in high regard. He noted that many scholars,
writers and other figures that gained national stature in the
early years of Indonesia's independence, came from this province.

"This deeply rooted traditional culture of placing high value
on education and science and of according people of letters in
high position should be sustained and developed in this modern
era."

West Sumatrans, he added, should not be too disillusioned if
their present intellectuals no longer appeared to be as prominent
as their predecessors because this did not necessarily mean that
the province has suffered a setback.

"This is happening because other regions have made significant
progress. Progress all round is what we have jointly endeavored,"
he added. (emb)