Bandung, 9 March 2018
On Thursday, March 9th 2018, UPI welcomed four deputations from UNITAR International University Malaysia to discuss the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that will be signed between the two universities.
This meeting which was held at Ruang Rapat Tengah (center meeting room) on the 2nd floor of Isola building was attended by Prof. Didi Sukyadi as Vice Rector for Research, Partnerships, and Enterprise Affairs and Ahmad Bukhori Muslim, Ph.D as Head of OIER.
This meeting was conducted in regard to build international partnership with UNITAR particularly in terms of academic development and activities particularly in Early Childhood Education, Guidance and Counseling. Vice Chancellor of UNITAR, Prof. Mohamad Kamal Nawawi along with the other three deputies mentioned that their institution is very careful in deciding which university to conduct academic collaboration with, and UPI with its academic achievements and reputation has encouraged UNITAR to establish mutual cooperation in academic activities.
Prof. Didi Sukyadi as Vice Rector for Research, Partnerships, and Business explained that UPI has finished numerous international academic collaborations with many other universities and there are also some ongoing academic projects such as credit transfer from AIMS, UITM, and Thailand programs, program with Daegu University from KOREA, ASEAN Education University Association, teaching practicum program, and many others. However, UPI is still open for some upcoming possibilities for establishing new academic collaborations with UNITAR International University such as twinning programs through vertical and horizontal credit transfer.
In this agenda, Ms. Farida Ibrahim as the lecturer in Faculty of Education in UNITAR conveyed her interest in KKN (community service) program that UPI has annually conducted for the students. She mentioned that it would be great if the community service could be implemented and developed between the two universities. In regard to the conference that will be held this October, the notion on external thesis assessor to examine particular research papers was brought up as another point to include in the MoU. Providing general reviewers or simply academic reviewers for research papers from UPI and UNITAR would benefit both parties as it would reduce the bias possibilities in examining the research papers for the conference.
Since there are several matters to consider, this agreement between UPI and UNITAR has to be further studied before the final signing. By this agreement, hopefully UPI and UNITAR can obtain mutual advantages in terms of academic development and activities.