Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY) always seeks to enhance its quality in various areas and to be a reputable university. One of UMY’s efforts is cooperating with international higher education institutions. To discuss cooperation, Vice Rector for Academic Affairs of UMY Dr. Ir. Sukamta, M.T., IPM. welcomed a liaison of several Indian higher education institutions Ravi Makhija on Thursday (29/3).

Sukamta told that UMY will cooperate with Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and Christ University. “It focuses on staff mobility, student mobility, or joint research. UMY parties visited the universities as the consideration about the preparation,” stated Sukamta in an interview on Thursday (29/3).

He also informed that UMY altered a scheme to cooperate. “We were firstly accustomed to sign Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), but we are now visiting the university, and afterwards we make an agreement. I think that this scheme is more efficient since the cooperation can be conducted with specific units or departments. We are not also trying to reenact sleeping MoU so that the potential of the agreement can be optimized,” declared Sukamta.

“This university has gained 5 stars from QS Star for facilities, social responsibilities, and inclusiveness. UMY endeavors to attain its goals in 2020 and to improve accreditation points for teaching and research through this cooperation,” explained Sukamta.

UMY also undertakes various internal improvements for the teaching and research as the implementation of tri dharma perguruan tinggi (the three principles of higher education). “For the research enhancement, in March we organized Science Camp for lecturers in order that their papers are qualified to be publish n journals indexed by Scopus. The Science Camp is the same as Kamp Berdikari that it is a forum to yield various ideas for community empowerment. Meanwhile, for teaching, we are now conceptualizing distant learning so that people can learn from long distance,” he maintained.