First year STPDN students to be moved to IIP Jakarta

Yuli Tri Suwarni, The Jakarta Post, Bandung

The Ministry of Home Affairs will start to transfer by Saturday some 1,200 first-year students of the Institute of Public Administration (STPDN) to the Institute of Public Administration Sciences (IIP).

The decision was executed in order to sever the tradition of campus violence at the STPDN, which cultivates students into future bureaucrats.

The students are to be moved on Saturday by bus from the STPDN campus in Jatinangor, West Java, to Cilandak, South Jakarta, where the IIP campus is located, said STPDN director I Nyoman Sumaryadi.

Sumaryadi said the new IIP students would receive an official welcome by home minister Hari Sabarno in a ceremony next Monday. "Based on studies, moving a generation of students from Jatinangor is one of the measures that can get rid of the culture of violence at the STPDN," he told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

Violence at the STPDN came into the spotlight after the death of Wahyu Hidayat on Sept. 2, 2003. Wahyu, a second-year student at STPDN died after a severe beating by his seniors.

His death revealed the culture of violence at the institute, which caused a public outcry, and the public demanded a thorough change in the educational environment at the school.

Sumaryadi said the decision to move the students was based on a study conducted by the home ministry, supervised by secretary- general Siti Nurbaya and IIP rector Prof. Ngadisah.

Once the first-year students were admitted to the IIP, they would be provided educational models far different from their seniors at the STPDN.

At the IIP, the militaristic educational system and tradition of hazing would be scrapped. Classes would focus on acquiring knowledge, for example, through book reviews, discussions and presentations.

The remaining 3,000 second- to fourth-year students at the Jatinangor campus would also be provided a change in educational models at their school. -- JP