Инженерный вестник: A New Indonesian University Will Train Students to Solve National Problems

Students from the Sampoerna School of Education observe schoolchildren in Jakarta. Classroom experience is a focus of the school's curriculum.

By Karin Fischer

There is nothing like the Sampoerna School of Education in the small central Java village where Yosea Kurnianto was raised.

Even after a year of studies here, he speaks of the private college—with its wired classrooms, well-stocked library, and rows of computers lined up like obedient soldiers in formation—with a mix of awe and pride.

"I feel progress in my life already," says Mr. Kurnianto, a bashful 19-year-old. "This is a very big miracle for me."

Indeed, the fact that Mr. Kurnianto is enrolled in college at all is against the odds. The college-going rate in this sprawling archipelago of 240 million people is just 17 percent, a proportion far behind that of its Southeast Asian neighbors. Only 7 percent of the population holds a degree. And while a push to expand universal access to primary education is slowly raising educational attainment, Indonesia's 80 overburdened public universities can admit only a fraction of those who apply.

Into that gap has come a flourishing private education system. But while many of Indonesia's 2,200 private colleges are of dubious quality and relatively high cost, the Sampoerna School of Education stands apart.

Founded by one of the country's wealthiest men, Putera Sampoerna, it is part of a bold plan to introduce the American land-grant-university model to Indonesia through partnerships with foreign universities.

Mr. Sampoerna, working through his foundation, aims to create a first-class university with a curriculum that corresponds to the country's economic needs and a high-achieving student body recruited from the country's lowest socioeconomic classes. Every one of the 190 undergraduates enrolled in the School of Education, the first of the university's colleges to open, is on financial aid.

In drawing disadvantaged students from the country's many islands and in focusing on fields critical to this developing nation, such as teacher training and entrepreneurship, Mr. Sampoerna hopes his institution can help build Indonesia's educational capacity and improve its economy.

"Only 2 percent of all kids that go to university come from rural areas, from the lowest economic quintile," Mr. Sampoerna notes, "and that's what we want to change."

Private Education's Rise

For decades the country has used funds from the World Bank and other sources to invest in educational programs. But attention has frequently been diverted by more immediate challenges: the transition from dictatorship to democracy, the threat of domestic terrorism, and the fiscal devastation of the Asian financial crash.

"When you are dealing with crisis after crisis," says Nenny Soemawinata, managing director of the Putera Sampoerna Foundation, "it's hard to think about the long term."

Still, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has made education a priority, acknowledging that without bettering educational access and outcomes, Indonesia cannot achieve its economic-development goals.

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