Trisakti, PGRI to lure minerals students
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)