VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

VOInews, Jakarta: The government has issued a licence to establish a branch campus of King's College London (KCL) in the Singhasari Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Malang district, East Java. Singhasari SEZ is the first exclusive area designated to develop the digital economy and education sectors.

Located at the Office of the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs on Thursday (20/06), the Government handed over the King's College London (KCL) Branch Campus Establishment Permit in the form of Decree of the Minister of Education, Culture, Research and Technology Number 238/E/O Year 2024 on the KCL Branch Campus Establishment Permit granted to Yayasan King Singhasari Indonesia. "This is a new history for education in Indonesia because of the arrival of universities from the UK that are top 100 or number 40 best in the world. So this is present in Malang and hopefully, this can encourage the HR education cluster in Malang to become a superior cluster. And of course, the Singhasari SEZ is expected to be a hub for collaboration of major universities in the world and this synergy is certainly needed to prepare our human resources to enter the future of works," said Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto as Chairman of the SEZ National Council at the event.

For education, KCL will take a full role in the implementation of the master's degree programme, from the implementation of the lecture curriculum to the teaching staff. The initial phase will focus on the digital economy through the MSc Digital Economies programme in September 2024, followed by the MSc Digital Futures programme in January 2025.

In addition, KCL's Place-Based Trans-National Education (TNE) is the first of its kind to be offered in Indonesia and half of KCL's faculty at the London campus have been involved in establishing TNE in Indonesia. This also demonstrates KCL's commitment to the delivery of its campuses in Indonesia. "And of course, the presence of King's College London will also facilitate Indonesian students who will study at King's College London. So it will be a two-sided agent. First to train the Indonesian people and then second to open access for Indonesian citizens to study at King's College London. So there will be 2 traffic and of course, we hope that the number of students in Indonesia will be more," said Airlangga.

In the future development plan, one new programme will be launched each year. The planned advanced programmes include an MSc in Digital Law in year 3, an MSc in Psychology in year 4, and an MSc in Cyber Security in year 5. Meanwhile, Singhasari SEZ will take a full role in providing infrastructure, facilities, and learning facilities for students.

On the occasion, Airlangga also gave directions to KCL to be able to accommodate at least 1,500 students, one of which is by working with the LPDP which is committed to providing scholarships for Indonesian students who will study at KCL Indonesia. "Of course, we hope that more universities will come to Indonesia. So that we have many top 100 human resources, and this will be in line with the demographic bonus in Indonesia and I hope that our young people become productive young people and can fill the needs of the digital economy," concluded Coordinating Minister Airlangga.

Source: Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs