Students take note

Watching a news broadcast on ANteve on May 15, 2000, at 5 p.m., I was shocked to see two groups of university students from the engineering and polytechnic departments of North Sumatra University involved in a brawl that caused enormous damage, including to a laboratory funded by the Japanese government.

Such irresponsible conduct by members of the academic society is shameful, given the fact that education is an on-going process of improving knowledge and skills. It is also primarily an exceptional means of bringing about personal development and building relationship among individuals, groups and nations (Jacques Delors).

Hence, brawling among university students can no longer be classified as juvenile delinquency needing to be handled by teachers or lecturers. But, rather, it is a kind of serious violent act of undermining the prestige of the students themselves as privileged members of society (Kas Marzurek et al. 2000).

Students, instead of testing your brute power, you would be better off testing your brainpower and prepare yourselves to challenge the twenty-first century accelerating learning era (Colin Rose 1997). Or why don't you develop your multiple intelligence skills beyond engineering, such as sports, arts and music?

ODO FADLOELI

Bandung