Indonesia as the largest archipelagic country in the world and rich in natural and cultural resources targets to become a developed country in 2045. Various efforts have been made by the government to accelerate the realization of these ideals. Infrastructure development as one of the strategies to improve the community’s economy continues to be accelerated. This is not only focused on urban areas or capital cities. But it has penetrated remote villages, even targeting inland areas. The encouragement to work quickly and competitively, which is results-oriented, is also continuously directed at the community, especially the younger generation who are now very friendly with information technology.
Another thing that is considered a condition for a country to achieve developed country status is superior, productive, and innovative human resources. This is also a serious concern for the Indonesian government to be realized. However, this step is not enough to be left to one party, namely the government alone, but it needs support from other parties, one of which is a university.
Ganesha University of Education (Undiksha) as one of the superior accredited tertiary institutions has a commitment to continue to contribute to national development through strengthening human resources. Undiksha is always ready to work for an advanced Indonesia, a tough and competitive Indonesia.
Realizing superior human resources, Undiksha as one of the higher education institutions that relies on the nobility of educational values has carried out breakthroughs both in terms of input, process, output, and outcome. Starting with a professional recruitment system to improve the quality of human resources through training, further studies, and other superior HR development programs. One of the programs launched by Undiksha is Internationalization at Home. This program makes Undiksha a home of learning for the international community as well as provides space for the academic community to increase knowledge, skills, and international experience which are currently global demands.
In addition, Undiksha, which carries the vision of becoming a superior university based on the Tri Hita Karana philosophy in Asia in 2045, will contribute to realizing an advanced Indonesia through character-building programs for educators and education staff, and students. In other words, Undiksha’s human resources are encouraged to be competitive in mastering knowledge and skills, mastering the emerging skills, capable of filling the emerging jobs and being innovative in building the emerging businesses and also competitive in character. This is very important for the next generation of the nation, as global competition increases in the era of the industrial revolution 4.0, which is marked by faster changes and increasingly fierce competition.
Apart from specifically building character, Undiksha also strengthens human resources through the implementation of the Tri Dharma of Higher Education, namely education and teaching, research, and community service. Regarding education and teaching, a learning curriculum is prepared that is relevant to needs. Undiksha has reoriented its curriculum in 2019 to adopt challenges in the 4.0 industrial revolution era by providing opportunities for students to acquire data, technology, and humanities literacy.
Therefore, also in the 2019 curriculum, Undiksha has actually implemented the concept of independent learning on a smaller scale, by giving freedom to students to take courses across study programs. Apart from that, Undiksha has carried out several independent learning activities, such as teaching assistance in education units and community building/thematic KKN. In 2020, curriculum improvements have been made again by realizing the concept of “free learning, independent campus”, by providing opportunities for students to study outside their study program for 3 semesters (1-semester outside study program in college and 2 semesters outside study program, outside college). The implementation of “Freedom to Learn, Independent Campus” aims to provide more and broader field experience to students, as well as equipping students with multi-competencies/multi-skills by providing opportunities to take courses outside their scientific field before completing their studies at tertiary institutions. The hope is that graduates can be well absorbed in the workforce and get decent jobs.
As an effort to accelerate the realization of the vision, Undiksha also supports implementation in the field of education and teaching by expanding cooperation, both with domestic and foreign universities. The collaboration is in the form of student exchanges, faculty exchanges, joint research, joint publications, international credit transfers, and so on. This collaboration has been ongoing and continues to be improved, both in terms of quality and quantity of participants. Apart from that, there is also cooperation with the local government and the private sector in the implementation of the Free Learning and Independent Campus policies which provide opportunities for students to hone competencies through industry, society, educational units, research bodies, and so on.
The research was carried out with reference to the Research Master Plan (RIP) which also referred to the development and discovery of mail and national character education materials, which were accommodated by the Research Center. The research is carried out with an orientation towards the development of science and technology globally based on Tri Hita Karana. Research implementation is also supported by collaboration with other universities, the business world, and the industrial world.
The community service program is Undiksha’s most intensive program. In 2020, Undiksha provided funding for 301 activity titles for service lecturers and there were 16 PkM activities funded from DRPM funds. There are 437 people from the total active lecturers at Undiksha who are involved in this program. Service programs are carried out in various fields, both in one scientific field and in a collaborative nature with various outputs, such as learning modules, information systems in tourism development, and various types of books.
The presence of the Covid-19 pandemic has also encouraged Undiksha to be more aggressive in carrying out community service programs. As an effort to prevent the spread of this global virus, Undiksha donated personal protective equipment and masks to medical staff, masks to the public, and other facilities. In addition, Undiksha also distributes basic food assistance to underprivileged residents. Apart from this movement, Undiksha academics also rolled out an innovation program. In 2020, several of them will be in the form of increased production and innovation of loloh turmeric in Bengkala Village, Buleleng Regency, application of artificial thermochromic technology to overcome difficulties in rock craft materials in Gianyar, revitalization of coloring technology using in preserving Buleleng endek, production of essential oils with the help of fermentation, synthetic wood products, and technology strengthened by silica-carbon nanocomposites, production of Balinese salak wine and production of hand sanitizers.
Apart from that, Undiksha academics also make protective products. Some of them include training and manufacturing of LPG leak detection tools, prevention of exposure to Covid 19 using Anticov 20, a word spotting system for indexing digital palm image collections of Bali, and the science and technology program for the essential oil community. There is also the processing of wood sawdust waste, and so on. It is hoped that more and more similar programs will be born by academics so that they are able to contribute to accelerating the realization of Undiksha’s vision and realizing a developed Indonesia.
