EU calls for RI to send more students

Erwida Maulia, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta  

The European Union plans to encourage more Indonesian students to study in its countries, citing the plenitude of scholarships on offer. 

French Ambassador to Indonesia Philippe Zeller said in Jakarta on Friday that 1,500 Indonesians were studying in schools in seven EU countries, well short of the number studying in Australia. 

"Every year, France hosts about 150 Indonesian students, whereas at the same moment there are about 12,000 or 13,000 Indonesian students studying in Australia," Zeller said during a press conference on the EU-sponsored Asia-Link Symposium and Education Fair. 

"I think this gap signifies that we really have to improve not only the mobility of students, but also create the spirit and framework of cooperation between Indonesia and Europe," he added. 

The education fair will take place over the weekend at Balai Kartini, South Jakarta, from 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., and will feature up to 90 higher education institutions from the EU. 

Ambassador and delegation head of the European Commission to Indonesia Julian Wilson said each of the 27 EU countries ran their own scholarship programs, in addition to the Erasmus Mundus scholarship offered annually by the European Commission. 

The existence of such scholarships, however, has been poorly advertised, prompting the EU to kick off the two-day fair. 

"We think Indonesian students aren't aware of the existing opportunities. Maybe there's a lot more than you realize; Come down and take a look at the affair," Wilson said. 

Dirk Meganck, director of Asia and Central Asia at the European Commission's EuropeAid Cooperation Office, said this year the EU provided 150 million euros (US$191 million) to fund its higher education cooperation programs with Asian countries, including Indonesia. 

Zeller said the EU expected to see the number of Indonesians studying in Europe double or even triple in the next few years. 

Indonesia's National Education Ministry director general for higher education Fasli Jalal responded to the EU's intention by inviting both European lecturers and students to visit Indonesian universities. 

"As this is a two-way partnership, we're inviting European lecturers to come and be part of our education system on the basis of an exchange of experts," he said. 

"We're also offering European students the chance to spend some time in Indonesian universities to study art, special interests, culture or even science." 

Zeller said European students might be interested in studying climate change, biodiversity and forestry in Indonesia, which are "very interesting fields."