Trisakti, PGRI to lure minerals students

JAKARTA (JP): Privately run Trisakti University is joining hands with the Jakarta office of the Ministry of Education and Culture and the Indonesian Teachers' Association (PGRI) in a bid to attract more high school students to take their university majors in mineral technology.

A cooperation agreement between the university and its partners was signed at the university's campus in Grogol, West Jakarta, on Friday by Sutan Assin, one of the university rector's assistants, and Alwi Nurdin, head of PGRI who is also chief of the Jakarta office of the Ministry of Education and Culture.

Sutan said that the cooperation agreement was aimed mainly at raising awareness among high school students to take up majors in geology and mining.

"The School of Mineral Technology of Trisakti University has been shunned by high school students since its establishment in 1980 as the subject is unpopular among them," Sutan said.

The number of the school's students reached only 800 this school year, far below the thousands that filled the university's eight other schools, including the schools of health, technology, law, arts and sociology.

"The School of Economics alone currently has 12,000 students," Sutan said.

Sutan said that before formalizing the cooperation, the university had earlier worked jointly with the Jakarta office of the Ministry of Education and Culture on a six-month trial period and the results were impressive.

"The office helped attract 150 new enrollments during the new school year," he said, adding that the cooperation would also be intended to attract more students to study the oil industry in greater depth.

"Through its direct contacts with junior high schools and high schools here, the education and culture office is able to stimulate awareness among the students of how interesting mining, geology and the oil industry are."

Sutan said that the cooperation would also give high school students more options, making them aware of other rarely-taken majors like environmental studies and social welfare.

Alwi said under the cooperation agreement PGRI's Jakarta branch with membership reaching about 90,000 teachers were not only free to use the university's facilities, including laboratory and library.

Study programs to train PGRI teachers were scheduled to be introduced by the university.

Alwi however said that no date had yet been decided on when the study programs will be held, what the topics selected will be for the programs and how many people are to be involved. (ylt)