Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY) always attempts to embody internationalization and become World Class University. One of UMY’s efforts is interweaving cooperation with foreign universities such as Finland University.
In an interview on Saturday (4/2) at Rector Office of UMY, Executive Vice President of Finland University Pasi Kaskinen stated that there is a possibility that his party to cooperate with UMY. “The cooperation can be in the form of short course, workshop, publishing and research collaboration, but firstly we are going to focus on pedagogy, how to improve university teaching quality. I think pedagogy is a strong field since one of the main goals of UMY is to enhance teaching quality,” Pasi declared.
Pasi conveyed that the international cooperation is a means of promoting five areas which have brought education of Finland to be rank one in the world, namely Educational Sciences, Public Administration, Information and Communication Technology, Forestry, as well as, Medicine and Health Sciences. “The success of Finnish Education can be noticed from how the Finnish people are able to implement those areas,” he said.
Pasi also explained that Finland University is a combination of the oldest and best multidisciplinary universities. “It is more efficient because, when you do the big project, you get the capacity of several universities. This is the basic idea behind Finland University,” he told.
He asserted that, even though those universities compete with one another, they can do cooperation and collaborative effort into creating something bigger together to this country.
Meanwhile, Senior Adviser for Teacher Education of Finland University Dr. Miinna Mäkihonko mentioned that Finland University comprises four best universities of Finland. “These universities facilitates the areas,” Dr. Minna maintained.
Indeed, Pasi and Dr. Minna encouraged Indonesian students to study in Finland University. Pisa informed that Finland University, if combined, possesses more than 50,000 international students. “In a university of Finland University, namely University of Turku, 80% of students of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) program are foreign students,” he uttered.
Requirements to study at Finland University vary and depend on the program, but the main requirement is English language proficiency since all programs in Finland University are taught in English. Students will be provided Finnish class in year one if it is necessary. “The requirements and tests at Finland University are different among programs. There is an examination based on articles that we give, and we select them based on the best point. Besides, we also see how they apply their knowledge, or how they organize a group discussion and we observe them,” Dr. Minna mentioned.
Responding the cooperation between UMY and Finland University, Rector of UMY Dr. Ir. Gunawan Budiyanto, M.P. accompanied Head of Master’s Islamic Studies Dr. Arif Budi Raharjo, M.Si. anf Head of Teaching Development Office Dr. Suryanto, S.Pd., MHSc. warmly welcomed the Finland University parties di sela-sela LPDP EduFair 2017. Dr. Gunawan maintained that the cooperation may be conducted in both UMY and Finland University. (Una)
