Indonesia strengthens collaboration on talent and education ecosystem with Georgia

The Indonesian government and Georgia are promoting the acceleration of finalising a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for higher education cooperation, as well as strengthening substantive collaborations focused on student exchanges, joint research, and human resource development.

This was demonstrated in an audience between the Deputy Minister of Higher Education, Science, and Technology (Wamendiktisaintek), Stella Christie, and the Ambassador of Georgia to Indonesia, H.E. Tornike Nozadze, at the office of the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, and Technology (Kemdiktisaintek) in Jakarta on Thursday (2/4).

In the meeting, both parties agreed that the intergovernmental or government-to-government (G2G) MoU needs to be completed promptly as an umbrella for cooperation that facilitates universities in developing more concrete collaborations. The Deputy Minister also emphasised the importance of changing the approach to international cooperation.

“We want to change the culture of international cooperation to truly substantive cooperation in the form of exchanges, research, and real collaborations. We really want to have a government-to-government MoU as its umbrella, so that universities no longer need to focus on MoUs, but directly work on content and implementation,” she said in a statement in Jakarta on Friday.

The Deputy Minister Stella emphasised that this approach aligns with the impactful Diktisaintek policy, which encourages international cooperation to produce tangible benefits for improving the quality of higher education.

Furthermore, Ambassador Tornike Nozadze assessed that student exchanges and direct interactions between communities are key to building understanding and long-term relations between Indonesia and Georgia.

“There is nothing more effective for enhancing inter-country understanding than student exchanges and direct people-to-people interactions,” said Tornike Nozadze.

It is known that as part of the implementation of cooperation, Indonesia and Georgia will exchange information covering English-language study programmes, scholarship schemes, and profiles of universities in both countries.

These efforts are expected to increase access and participation of students in international programmes, while expanding public understanding of educational opportunities in each country.