Me and All Things Around Me: Joint Working Group Indonesia-France 2013, Starting Point of Collaboration between Indonesia and Napoleon’s Homeland

Written by me >.<

Surabaya (10-11/10). Government of Indonesia and France held Joint Working Group Indonesia-France 2013 this year. On October 10th and 11th 2013, it was the fifth.

This year, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS) was selected by Directorate General of Higher Education Republic of Indonesia (DIKTI) to collaborate with L'Institut Francais d'Indonesie (IFI) and Planning Bureau of International Cooperation of the Ministry of Education and Culture of Indonesia (BPKLN) to be the host of this event. About 59 France Institutions and 80 delegations from Indonesian Universities and 10 delegations from Indonesian vocational school participated in this event.

On the first day, at 08.30 songs from ITS Choir (Surabaya Meley, Indonesia Raya, La Marseille) welcomed the delegation from both countries. This event was started with welcoming speech from Prof. Dr. Ir. Tri Yogi Yuwono, DEA as the Rector of ITS and Bertrand de Hartingh as the Cooperation Counsellor Embassy of France also The Minister of Education and Culture/ Director of Institutional, and Cooperation Directorate General of Higher Education, Ministry of Education and Culture as the representative of Indonesian government. Following by opening plenary session about the evaluation of the joint in 2012/2013 and the perspective of the joint in 2013/2014 by Head of Bureau of Planning and International Cooperation/Directorate of Teachers and Education Personnel and Bertrand de Hartingh.

The next agenda, after coffee break, the participants was separated into eight groups of different topics. The topics are ocean, disaster management, engineering, agriculture, medical science, management and economic, social politics, vocation, and polytechnic. Each group was lead by a co-chair to discuss about the topic and the circumstances in both countries. After lunch, each group continued the discussion till dinner time.

Several special performances were also presented by ITS Choir such as, “Rek Ayo Rek”, “Sik Sik Sibatumanikam”, “Marencong Rencong”, “Bungong Jeumpa”. There were also some beautiful songs from ITS Jazz, and traditional dance from PPNS.

On the second day, started at 08.30, the participants continued the discussion. Different from others, group 8 (Vocation and Polytechnic Group) visited vocational school around ITS for the Profesional Training Session. The selected school was SMKN 1 Surabaya.

The discussion ended and followed by a closing plenary session. Each group reported the result of the discussion about 6 minutes and Director of Institutional and Cooperation Directorate General of Higher Education, Ministry of Education and Culture gave the summary from all of the results of the discussions. Then, the event was closed by Bureau of Planning and International Cooperation.

A 2-days conference probably was not quite enough to create intimate collaborations between Indonesia and France universities. However, this event hopefully could lead Indonesia and France universities to create another further discussions between themselves in the future. In this event Prof Tri Yogi decided to cooperate with 2 universities of France for research also student and lecturer exchange by signing MoU after the opening of the JWG. (mut)