High educational budget should be made to improve education quality: VP

Sumbawa Besar-wapresri.go.id. With quite high educational budgets, amounting to 20 percent of the total state budget, the quality of education in Indonesia is expected to be further improved. Vice President Jusuf Kalla stated this when giving a Public Lecture at the University of Samawa (UNSA), Sumbawa Besar, West Nusa Tenggara Province, Wednesday (July 20).

The Vice President at the occasion expressed his excitement with the large number of higher education institutions in Indonesia, either private or public, including in Sumbawa, as they are is addressing the needs of education for the community.

Therefore, the Vice President encouraged all national elements, including government and local businesses, to help develop the quality of education, especially in Sumbawa. Even in person, the Vice President appealed Chairman of PT Newmont Nusa Tenggara Muhammad Lutfi to allocate the company’s zakat of mining products to aid various educational institutions including to the University of Samawa.

Responding the request of the Rector of the University of Samawa to convert the status of his university from a private university into a state university, the Vice President said that the government currently imposes a moratorium on the creation or conversion of state universities.

“Government has such a policy although more than 100 universities asking for conversion. We do this as we want to first improve the quality of the universities so as to compete with other state universities that have been established,” he added.

Nonetheless, the Vice President argued that the quality of private universities is not necessarily lower than that of state universities.

“Harvard and Oxford, for example, are private universities but their quality is not inferior to public universities,” said the Vice President.

Also attending the ceremony were Minister of Public Works and Public Housing Basuki Hadimuljono, Minister of State for Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform Yuddy Chrisnandi, West Nusa Tenggara Governor Muhammad Zainul Majdi, Head of Vice Presidential Office Mohammad Oemar, and Sumbawa Regent M. Husni Djibril. (KIP, Setwapres)