"Universities must be involved maximally in handling the 3T regions. The solving of problems there must involve universities," he stressed at the 'Transformation of Maritime Civilization Towards Golden Indonesia 2045' national seminar here on Wednesday.
According to him, there are many things that can be done by involving universities, such as poverty alleviation, stunting handling, and regional development.
He observed that public trust in higher education institutions is higher than in non-educational institutions. The community listens more to what students or academicians say.
Effendy said that students who undertake voluntary work in the 3T regions will be happy because of the experience that they will get. Nevertheless, funding support for their transportation would need to be provided.
There are currently around 4,800 universities in Indonesia, out of which around 100 are state universities, he noted.
That figure, he said, is a valuable capital for jointly developing the country with the government, in accordance with President Joko Widodo's (Jokowi) vision of developing Indonesia from the periphery.
He pointed out that assigning the task of handling one island in Indonesia to each university, with the support of funding, would be an excellent idea. "However, the realization of the idea must be strived for," he added.
The minister further said that the lack of a stable formulation regarding budgeting will be a challenge. This is because the allocation of funds for Java Island and islands outside Java will certainly be different.
"We have not imagined that yet, calculating precisely about budgeting. To produce the same output between Java and Papua, it needs six times (the funds)," he explained.
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Translator: Asep Firmansyah, Raka Adji
Editor: Sri Haryati
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