Violent week-long protest shuts Medan Institute of Technology
Violent week-long protest shuts Medan Institute of Technology
Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Medan, North Sumatra
Unruly demonstrations by students demanding the resignation of a
department head meant teaching activities at the Medan Institute
of Technology (ITM) were officially halted for four days starting
on Thursday.
Students have been staging protests for almost a week on their
campus on Jl. Gedung Arca, Medan, North Sumatra, demanding the
resignation of mechanical engineering department head Ilmi
Abdullah.
The protesters blamed Ilmi for the lowering of the
accreditation grade of their private-run institute from a B to C.
The protests turned unruly, with students setting fire to
desks, chairs, breaking windows and briefly taking the
institute's deputy rector Zul Asri and senate secretary Hamzah
Lubis hostage.
ITM rector Zulkifli Mukhtar said the decision to send home the
students for a four-day holiday was aimed at cooling down the
situation on the campus.
The students must return to the campus on Monday and those who
remained "disobedient" and continued to resort to vandalism and
violence would be expelled from the institute or face other
academic sanctions, he said.
"Hopefully, peace will soon return on Monday. Give us time to
evaluate this problem," Zulkifli said.
The rector said campus administrators had reported the
incident to police to investigate.
Responding to the protesters' demand for the university to
dismiss Ilmi, Zulkifli said it was illogical and baseless.
"The demand is excessive. A drop in a school's rate of
accreditation doesn't mean that its department head should be
removed. Ilmi Abdullah has been teaching here for only a year. If
such a request this so hastily granted, I could be the next
target," he said.
The rector argued the move to lower the accreditation rate
from B to C had been approved by the higher education directorate
of the national education ministry in Jakarta.
Ilmi said the student demand for him to resign was
unreasonable.
"At the time, when a team from the higher education
directorate was here for evaluations, I had only served four
months as the head of the mechanical engineering department. Why
am I blamed for the drop in the grade? It's not right," he said.
No one was to blame, he said. A review would take place in
order to improve the quality of education in the school.
Student protester Hendra said the students became unruly
because university leaders had failed to respond to their
demands.
Violent protests could have been avoided if the rector or
other campus leaders had quickly explained what was behind the
decision to drop the school's accreditation rate, he said.
"There were certainly reasons for (the students) being
disorderly. And the reasons were simple -- they had not been
listened to seriously," Hendra told The Jakarta Post.
Since the mechanical engineering department was headed by
Ilmi, students had been burdened with lots of regulations, he
said.
It was also hard to find Ilmi on campus, Hendra said.