Addressing the demands and developments of the world globally, universities, as the main place of science and technology development, should strive to develop their institutions from the perspective of the international community. Universitas Pendidikan Ganesha (Undiksha) is highly related to the strong flow of higher education reform under the implementation of the Internationalization at Home (IaH) programme concept. The IaH programme is a programme that seeks to integrate the intercultural dimensions of the international community both into the formal and non-formal curriculum structures of universities to the deepest environment of the community activities within the university. Within the framework of achieving Undiksha’s mission to become a Superior University based on the Tri Hita Karana Philosophy in Asia in 2045, the IaH program is essential and needs to be accelerated in its planning, implementation, and partnerships.
Undiksha has started to develop international programmes more intensively since 2019, officially proclaimed as the year of Internationalization at Home. The first gateway for Undiksha to establish massive international partnerships at the Southeast Asian level begins with the support of the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO). One of the first programmes implemented for Undiksha through SEAMEO was the SEA Teacher Project or “Pre-Service Student Teacher Exchange in Southeast Asia” programme. Through the programme, Undiksha has realized student exchanges abroad to carry out the Pre-Service Student Teacher / Teaching Practice (PLP) programme and, of course, reciprocally has accepted students from several Southeast Asian partners to carry out the same programme at Undiksha.
The presence of students from partner universities certainly brings a refreshing international atmosphere to the progress of the IaH programme at Undiksha. The impact on several study programmes and faculties and the lecturer staff as field supervisors for international students was instant. Although the pandemic conditions that hit the world in 2020 had limited the continuation of this programme, in 2021 Undiksha was again able to realize a similar programme online/virtually, with an increasing number of students, and this year has gone through the independent collaboration (U-to-U) directly with overseas university partners.
Since 2020, Undiksha has begun to prepare a draft for forming an international class initiation (IKI). the IKI was developed to accept international students with a global curriculum design. The formation of the IKI is one of the main activities of the development of the IaH programme at Undiksha. The realization of IKI was finally opened starting from the Odd Semester of the 2021/2022 Academic Year by involving each study programme as a mandatory representative of IKI from each faculty. In addition to the internal preparation of the IKI class development institution, since 2020, Undiksha has also intensified the expansion of partnership programmes with foreign universities. Undiksha began to aggressively offer academic and non-academic activities packages to invite and attract international students to study at Undiksha.
Along with the preparation and development stages of IKI, Undiksha has started and continues to open special classes in several courses that are ready to accept international students. Several forms of activities that are the axis of support for the implementation of IKI in the IaH programme at Undiksha until 2021 include the International Joint Teaching and Joint Teaching with Practitioners programme, International Credit Transfer/Student Exchange, International Joint Seminar/Webinars, International Visiting Professor/Lecturer, International Guest Lecturer, International Virtual Summer School, Virtual Immersion English Camp, and Virtual English Conversation Class. These programmes have significantly increased the number of international students studying at Undiksha in 2021 and foreign academics and researchers.
Through these programmes, Undiksha has been fully committed to open the widest possible doors for the international community who wants to have a learning experience at Undiksha. Undiksha is already on the roadmap for implementing the IaH programme, which has various challenges but is also full of opportunities and benefits. Undiksha has prepared itself to become one of the gateways for the entry of international globalization, not only internally as a higher education institution, but Undiksha is also expected to contribute broadly improving the quality of world-class education for all stakeholders and, of course, for the country. (lpsy)
