Universitas Muhammdiyah Yogyakarta (UMY) has attempted to reinforce its cooperation with other countries in educational field. One of the countries is Germany. The cooperation will benefit Germany and Indonesia.
The cooperation reinforcement was conducted through a workshop of ‘Strategic Gender Management for Institutions of Higher Education in Indonesia’. The workshop was organizes by German Academic Exchange Service (DDAD), UMY, and University of Kristen Indonesia (UKI). It was held on 9-13 November at UKI Jakarta.
A lecturer assistant of Master of Governmental Studies of UMY Firly Annisa, M.A. stated that the workshop aimed at providing knowledge and reinforcement of institutions of higher education in Indonesia regarding gender equality issues. Educational institution policy reinforcement of gender mainstreaming is necessary to coin campus environment which is progressive, friendly to women, children, and the disable.
“One of the ways to encourage the gender mainstreaming campus environment is by providing occasions for women to be the head of units, head of department, dean, or rector. Thus, this objective of the workshop is to provide knowledge and reinforcement for institutions of higher education in Indonesia dealing with gender equality issues. The other objective is to reinforce cooperation between Germany and Indonesia since we collaborated with German educational institution to conduct this workshop,” told Firly on a release received by Public Relations and Protocol Affairs of UMY on Saturday (21/11).
Firly informed that one of the speakers was Dr. Brita Thege, a sociological lecturer of Fachhochshulle Kiel. Dr. Brita declared that reinforcement of women capacity and networking is necessary to support progressive women leadership. She argues that campus environment is supposed to easily accept ideas of women leadership because campus is a place where the people are open-minded so that gender issues should become priority. She asserted, “Educational institutions are expected to become places to develop women equality issues holding human rights. The equality based on human right perspective should be campaigned by religion based universities such as UMY and UKI.”
Firly inserted that religious values holding human rights can provide opportunities for women to lead and take essential roles of campus decision-making. Thus, as the follow up of reinforcement of gender mainstreaming in institutions of higher education in Indonesia, the next workshop will be conducted at UMY in March 2016. “The participants will be alumni, lecturers, researchers, awardees of DAAD Germany, and lecturers engaging in Indostaff-Network activities,” she ended.
