In search of institutes of higher education

SURABAYA (JP): After having long been dubbed the city of Indamardi (industry, trade, maritime and education), Surabaya today is striving to be just as popular for its tertiary education.

For many Indonesians, the country's second largest city is simply a city for trade and industries.

Surabaya is not renowned for its higher educational institutions like in other cities of Java such as Bandung, Yogyakarta and Jakarta.

This is ironical, indeed, because the city is home to three state universities and dozens of private ones.

The School of Medicine of the state Airlangga University here is among the best in Indonesia.

Students from the Department of Shipping Industry of the state-owned Surabaya Institute of Technology (ITS) visit PT PAL, a ship builder, for practical training.

Surabaya University (Unesa) is another state university here. It was formerly called Surabaya's Educational and Teaching Institute, or IKIP Surabaya.

The private universities in Surabaya include UK Petra, the University of Surabaya, Unika Widya Mandala, the University of Dr. Soetomo (Unitomo), and the University of 17 Agustus (Untag).

Despite the good number of universities here, they are not the top choices of high school students.

In fact the students are being wooed by foreign universities, particularly those from Australia, U.K. and the States, who send their representatives here to aggressively promote the universities.

Presentations and exhibitions on overseas universities are usually held at five-star hotels.

Therefore to compete with the foreign universities, many operators of private universities no longer require applicants to sit for an entrance examination. As long as the applicant can afford the fee, he is guaranteed a seat at the university, regardless of his academic results.

A popular course at many universities in Surabaya today is communications, making Surabaya the city with the largest number of communications schools in this country.

At Unitomo, for instance, its School of Communications has been the most popular department in the past few years, especially after the fall of the New Order regime.

About 10 years ago, the department only had three students. Today there at least 400 students in Unitomo's School of Communications.

"Perhaps they realize the importance of communications," said Redi Panuju, a deputy to Unitomo's rector.

Previously the most popular course used to be economics.

Compared to private universities, state universities have better academic standards and their fees are lower too as these institutions are subsidized by the government. As a result state universities are more sought after than private ones.

"The competition is very tight at state universities. And good private universities here are very expensive with fees comparable to universities abroad.

"So, I would rather go overseas," commented a girl, who attended a higher education exhibition here recently. (Riyadi Ngasiran and Sirikit Syah)