Education and Cultural attaché of the Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia in Malaysia, Prof. Dr. Ari Purbayanto, M.Sc. encouraged students to be actively involved in enhancing educational quality of Indonesia. The students’ involvement can be undertaken through learning education quality of other countries which enable the people to compete in ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). He stated that Malaysia is an appropriate target country to learn educational quality due to its well-organized and well-structured educational system.

In a remark of the signing of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on teaching internship between UMY and the Indonesian Embassy in Malaysia on Thursday (9/2) at meeting hall of A.R. Fachruddin A, he declared, “This is a right moment to foster Indonesian educational quality. This cooperation enables students to broaden their horizons. The competition has been right in front of us. AEC has begun. We have to reinforce our competitiveness through well-structured educational processes both in Indonesia and aboard.

Prof. Ari informed that Malaysia excels in an educational field and possesses intense characteristics. “We should get occasions. Even though Malaysia has not won science Olympiads, we have to notice the well-organized Malaysian education. We also have to utilize the geographic and cultural proximity, and shift our paradigm into how to build networking in both Indonesia and overseas,” he embolden.

Prof. Ari expected that the cooperation in an educational area can be in the form of not only an internship program but also cultural diplomacy. “We should tell the world that we are a big nation, and show it through the cultural diplomacy, how the Indonesia language can become an official language of ASEAN,” he hoped.

Meanwhile, Rector of UMY Dr. Ir. Gunawan Budiyanto, M.P. maintained that it was unfortunate that Indonesian people can take the opportunities yet. He thought being less confident brought Indonesia to be a developing country. “We essentially possess the same huge chances as Malaysia, but unfortunately we live in a coconut shell. If we boost our confidence, I certainly believe our capacity is more than other countries. We have been introverted, and I think that this internship program will widely open many opportunities,” he contended,