Supervision of public services, provided by both government and private sectors, is a must to achieve aims of the services. Thus, Ombudsman of Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta (DIY) solicited students of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY) to get engaged in the supervision and recommend resolutions of public service issues.

The encouragement was declared in a visit of the Ombudsman to UMY on Tuesday (3/3). Welcomed at meeting hall of A.R. Fachruddin A, Ombudsman stated its intention to cooperate with UMY in enhancing their performance.

Deputy Head of Regional Government Apparatus Suki Ratnasari, S.H, M.H. conveyed that the students represent academicians to provide suggestions to arrange solutions of the public services. “The Ombudsman controls not only public policy but also other sectors as spatial planning, economic empowerment, environmental maintenance, and use of sustainable technology. Hence, we need the students from multidiscipline to give their notions,” she maintained.

The Ombudsman provides an internship program for UMY students and discusses with them at class to broaden their knowledge of the public service issues which are more complicated than how they seem. “The problems emerge since people often solve their problems through the Ombudsman instead of courts. For one reason, our method prioritizes mitigation and attempts to find a win-win solution. This is what we need to widely promote, an objective mediation,” informed Suki.

“Through this collaboration, we would like to train students as an agent of change responsive to social issues. For instance, we conduct training to improve people’s ability in assessing whether or not the public services are implemented well. We believe that the students’ involvement in giving recommendations will create a better public service system. Besides, the experience will benefit students since their activities often deal with community,” ended Suki.