Is it Sex education?

Joni, anak kecil yang berumur 7 tahun, suatu pagi berlari masuk ke rumah, mencari mamanya dan bertanya:
“Mama, Joni sebenarnya berasal dari mana, sih ?”

Mama Joni tercengang, tapi kemudian mulai menyadari betapa media informasi betul-betul telah membuat anak cepat menjadi dewasa.
Dengan penuh pengertian mama ini berkata: “Joni, bagaimana kalau tunggu Papa pulang. Papa akan jelaskan kepadamu dari mana kamu sebenarnya berasal. Oke..?

Dengan sedikit cemas, diam-diam ibu Joni menelpon suaminya yang ada di kantor dan menceritakan tentang pertanyaan Joni. Kesepakatan akhirnya dibuat bahwa sudah saatnya Joni mendengar sedikit “sex education”, lebih baik mendengar dari orang tuanya dari pada dari media informasi yang mungkin kurang mendidik. Maka pulang dari kantor Papa pergi ke toko buku dan membeli beberapa gambar anatomi tubuh untuk keperluan itu.

Sepulangnya ke rumah, papa dan mama mengadakan sedikit perundingan dan persiapan di kamar tidur. Dengan mantap dipanggillan Joni untuk berbicara 6 mata. Bagi papa dan mama ini merupakan peristiwa penting, saat untuk membuktikan bahwa mereka telah berhasil menjadi orang tua yang baik dalam mendidik putranya.

Setelah 15 menit papa dengan susah payah menjelaskan tentang tubuh manusia dan bagaimana terjadinya pembuahan, Joni masih kelihatan bengong dan mulai kelihatan tidak tertarik.

Pama dan mama panik, merasakan kegagalan dalam menjelaskan hal yang sangat sensitif ini. Akhirnya mama bertanya, “Joni, ..memang ini hal yang sulit untuk dimengerti. Kami sungguh bangga kamu berani bertanya pertanyaan yang penting ini.”

Joni menjadi semakin bingung, dan dengan putus asa ia berkata: “Ma, Joni heran kok susah banget sih jawabannya. Joni cuma mau tanya Joni ini berasal dari mana. Mama tahu kan, ada anak tetangga sebelah yang baru pindahan. Tadi pagi dia cerita dia berasal dari Yogya, dan katanya semua orang Jakarta dulunya berasal dari tempat lain. Dan dia tanya, Joni asalnya dari mana. Joni nggak tahu mau jawab apa, kan dari dulu Joni tinggal di Jakarta terus……!

Papa dan mama terkejut,
“…O..la..la…..?????”

Organizational lessons for nonprofits

Organizational lessons for nonprofits

The achievement gap between rich and poor students in the United States has confounded educators for decades. Wendy Kopp posed a novel remedy in her Princeton senior thesis: persuading hundreds of graduates of top US universities to spend two years teaching disadvantaged students before starting careers in investment banking, medicine, and the like or continuing in education. Teach For America, as her nonprofit organization came to be known, would train prospective teachers intensively over the summer and then place them in the classrooms of low-income communities across the country. Kopp believed that in addition to boosting the students’ achievement by enlisting bright, energetic teachers for schools that find it hard to attract them, the organization would turn the recruits into lifelong advocates of educational reform.

That was in 1989. Within a year, Kopp had created a skeletal group of recent graduates, raised $2.5 million, and persuaded 2,500 college seniors from universities such as Harvard, Spelman, the University of Michigan, and Yale to apply for 500 teaching positions.¹ Six school districts, from New York City to rural North Carolina, eagerly awaited the new teachers. Before long, news organizations such as the New York Times and the Public Broadcasting System were carrying laudatory stories about them.

Yet five years later, Teach For America was on the verge of collapse. The organization was more than $1 million in debt, and Kopp was scrambling to find $200,000 every two weeks to meet its payroll. Applications for teaching positions were dropping and would soon be down by almost 40 percent. To make matters worse, an influential expert blasted Teach For America in a leading academic journal, thereby spooking donors and eroding already low staff morale.

Like many nonprofits, Teach For America focused solely on its mission and short-term financing

What had gone wrong? Like many nonprofits, Teach For America focused exclusively on its mission—and on the relentless pressure to meet short-term financing needs—and shortchanged its organizational development. Employees were spread too thin. Basic management structures and processes, such as staff recruiting, performance evaluation, and annual goal setting, were neglected. In short, the organization itself wasn’t nearly as strong as the program it had created, though that too had room for improvement. A crisis that jeopardized the entire mission was needed to make the group rethink its strategy.

Ultimately, Teach For America reversed its downward spiral (Exhibit 1). The story of its near demise and dramatic turnaround shows how nonprofit leaders can pursue their visions while building enduring organizations. The lesson: the mission and organizational capacity must go hand in hand.

Taking off

Setting up offices in space donated by Morgan Stanley in New York City, Kopp attracted a team of young, inexperienced graduates committed to Teach For America’s goals. The vision was deliberately bold. Many experts had counseled Kopp to start with a small pilot project, but she thought her idea would succeed only if it were launched as a large, national movement that could capture the imagination of her peers and, like the Peace Corps a generation earlier, attract the most talented college students of the day.

Creating a large organization from the ground up made for a rocky first year: applicants waited weeks to hear their interview results, the teachers’ trainers were inadequately prepared, and fund-raising was a constant distraction. Yet by June 1990, 500 new graduates, or "corps members," had gathered for eight weeks of intensive teacher training. The following year, a successful word-of-mouth campaign, combined with major news stories, attracted 3,000 applicants for 700 positions. The budget jumped to $5 million, and prominent corporations and foundations gave the fledgling organization their imprimatur.

Emboldened, Kopp and her team tackled a series of related educational problems by launching two new organizations under the Teach For America umbrella. TEACH! was formed in 1991 to help school districts improve the way they recruit, select, and support new teachers. The Learning Project was set up in 1993 to develop innovative summer school programs in inner cities, with the goal of eventually finding a new model for schools during the academic year.

For a while, the energy and success of the early years masked the start-up’s organizational deficiencies. But these could not be kept at bay indefinitely. One problem was an inadequate organizational structure. Kopp was consumed with fund-raising and had little time to manage the staff members who reported to her. Decisions were made by consensus during Monday night meetings that stretched into the early-morning hours. Disagreements over strategy and growth plans were fierce. During the summer of 1991, the entire staff threatened to quit unless Kopp allowed everyone to vote on important organizational decisions. Ultimately, she declined to do so; though no one left, discontent simmered on. Despite the staff’s long hours and hard work, the chaotic environment and operational crises continued, eroding morale.

Financially, moreover, Teach For America was on a similarly shaky footing, relying on too few large foundations and individual donors. Like many nonprofit executives, Kopp soon learned that most leading national foundations grant three to five years of start-up funding; few provide operating support in perpetuity. When some of the original funding dried up just as the organization was expanding, Kopp and her team found that they were operating on a payroll-to-payroll basis, a problem that lasted for most of fiscal years 1992 to 1994. As the first wave of funders began to end their support, other foundations noticed the organization’s increasingly wobbly finances and began to reconsider their own contributions.

In the summer of 1994, a question-and-answer session in Houston between Kopp and 500 new corps members degenerated into a shouting match. Disillusioned corps members felt that Teach For America hadn’t delivered on its promises: training was inadequate; organization and internal communications were poor. The negative word of mouth spread to college campuses, and applications fell from a high of 3,600 in 1993 to an eventual low of 2,200 in 1996. The situation hit rock bottom soon after the summer of 1994, when Linda Darling-Hammond, a professor at Columbia University Teachers College, published a scathing critique of Teach For America in Phi Delta Kappa, the main US academic journal for educators. While Kopp and others would argue that most of the criticism was inaccurate, the article further diminished Teach For America’s external support and staff morale.

Back to basics

Organization should matter to nonprofit groups and profit-making businesses alike. But though nonprofit leaders zealously build programs and raise money, they often neglect the organizational structures and management processes that form the base of enduring institutions.² Part of the problem lies in the funding environment. Although some philanthropists are beginning to recognize the importance of building organizational capacity, foundations and other large donors give money mainly for specific programs or capital projects rather than general administrative expenses. Charities therefore routinely publish their overhead-expense ratios to convince donors that money won’t be "wasted."

Nonprofit leaders themselves share some of the responsibility for this problem. Internal management structures and processes can seem less rewarding than programs that fulfill an organization’s mission; the link to performance is harder to see. And like the leaders of Teach For America, many find that operating on shoestring budgets and tight deadlines leaves little time or energy to think about the nuts and bolts of good management.

Ultimately, Kopp and her colleagues came to realize that the development of effective management systems and efforts to achieve financial stability could no longer be put off, for these goals were as important to the success of Teach For America as the ability to put great teachers in the field. After considering the idea of closing down the organization in early 1995, its leaders instead decided to overhaul it from top to bottom. They then implemented a plan to build a diverse and sustainable funding base, to concentrate on core activities, to introduce much-needed management processes, and to strengthen the culture. This experience provides a guide for other nonprofits on how to build a stable, thriving organization.

1. A stable financial base

Teach For America’s financial situation required a radical shift in thinking. Instead of calculating the organization’s expenses and then trying to raise enough money, as in the early years, Kopp and her team now started by figuring out how much money they could raise sustainably and then trimmed the budget to fit. After analyzing their fund-raising history and prospects, they decided that an annual budget of $6 million would be feasible—but this meant cutting expenses by $2 million, or 25 percent. Painful choices had to be made: programs were ended and 60 staff members—nearly half the total of 130—were laid off. But by 1996, the organization was operating comfortably within budget and the days of struggling to meet its payroll were over.

Building a broader funding base was another priority. Kopp and her colleagues taught the heads of the organization’s 13 regional offices to cultivate local benefactors and helped each office set concrete fund-raising goals. By 1997, the regional executives were meeting those goals—and supplying half of the budget. Teach For America went from 275 funders in 1993 to more than 1,400 in 1998.

2. A focused mission

An organization’s mission drives everything: it is the basis of strategy and determines what the organization will—and won’t—do. For nonprofits, the mission plays an important role in inspiring staff and donors.

By early 1995, the leadership team concluded that Teach For America was suffering from "mission creep." Although improving the ability of school districts to train new teachers and developing innovative school models were important tasks, they were not part of the original mission of Teach For America, and to succeed it needed to sharpen its focus by spinning off TEACH! and The Learning Project.³

Pursuing a focused mission also meant concentrating on the five most pressing organizational priorities of Teach For America: making it financially stable, improving its teacher recruitment and training, strengthening the management and development of its staff, raising its reputation among the public and the educational community, and changing the composition and structure of its national board as well as creating regional boards to gain new allies who could enhance its financial prospects and general reputation. Activities that didn’t advance one of these five goals were eliminated.

Meanwhile, the group realized that it needed solid, quantifiable performance goals. During the early years, Kopp and her team had tried to manage by specifying processes, not end results. This approach led to countless meetings about planning and to tedious micromanagement by senior leaders, while frustrated staff members were sometimes unclear about, and unaccountable for, the outcome of their work. By setting goals and making specific people responsible for achieving them, Kopp improved the organization’s results and morale and freed up more of her own time. Staff members, in turn, were happier in their jobs and better understood how they should spend their time.

3. Organizational structure

Human resources are the most important asset of many organizations, particularly in the nonprofit sector. Unleashing the staff’s full potential requires more than idealism, however; effective managers are needed, too.

The first step in fixing Teach For America’s crumbling organization was to create a formal senior-management group. During the early years, hierarchy had been rejected in favor of egalitarianism and consensus. About 50 staff members reported directly to Kopp, and all earned roughly the same salary: $25,000 a year, about what a new teacher receives. Kopp had been overwhelmed by management duties; given the fund-raising and operational demands on her time, she couldn’t devote much of it to staff development. The structure also meant that staff members rarely worked without her direct involvement and that she had the last word in most decisions. Not surprisingly, dissatisfaction with such arrangements proliferated.

Currently a formal talent pipeline helps senior managers keep tabs on promising corps members, alumni, and external contacts

Kopp’s remedy was to create vice presidencies for program activities, fund-raising, communications, staffing, and finance and administration. This step allowed her to balance her time between strengthening the program of Teach For America and building its financial and internal capacity. As original staff members moved on, she took the opportunity to recruit new leaders, many with significant professional experience and expertise, from outside the organization and from its alumni base. Today a formal talent pipeline helps senior managers keep tabs on promising corps members, alumni, and external contacts.

4. Culture

An organization’s culture is more than just the atmosphere of the office. When clearly articulated, it guides the staff’s behavior and communicates "the way we do things around here."⁴ Many leaders, whether of nonprofit or for-profit organizations, dismiss culture as a soft management issue that has little impact on results. But Teach For America found nothing soft about it.

Idealism, entrepreneurialism, and ambition were Teach For America’s original strengths, enabling it to persuade bright college graduates to postpone lucrative careers and join the organization instead. But by 1995, it had grown too large to transmit these values informally. As operational and financial stresses mounted, morale began to unravel. Negativity and infighting were common.

At the nadir of the crisis, Kopp jotted down a list of core values that defined the way members should work. The list called upon them to take responsibility for the success of the entire organization, to strive for ambitious goals and overcome obstacles along the way, to engage in constant learning, to maintain a positive outlook, and to write clearly and think critically. After long discussions with the whole staff, the list was revised (see Exhibit 2 for the current list of core values). Unexpectedly, this process proved to be a turning point. The decision to spell out how staff members were expected to approach their work set a new tone, and gradually the atmosphere became more upbeat. Since then, the core values have been woven into everything from performance evaluations to new-staff induction processes.

A stronger organization

Change didn’t happen overnight, but by 1997, Teach For America was a different place: it had covered its operating expenses for three years running, retired its long-term debt, and built a small operating reserve fund. Staff members felt more committed to their jobs and responsibilities and sought feedback from their managers. Performance goals were set and reviewed annually; teacher-recruitment and -support programs were strengthened. The staff began to view Teach For America as a well-run organization.

During the spring of 2000, it kicked off an expansion plan. Among the goals: to enlarge the corps to almost 4,000 members (from just over 1,000), to improve the training and support of each, and to harness the ability of the 7,000 alumni to foster educational reform. Meanwhile, the staff continues to build the organization—but now in a sustainable way. Teach For America is increasing its budget (to $36 million), building an operating reserve, strengthening its management team, and upgrading its technology.

In the fall of 2003, the 3,400 corps members will reach more than 250,000 students. The organization has developed a management tool to gauge the ability of its teachers to raise the achievement of their students. A new academic study has found that these teachers outperform other new ones,⁵ and the alumni are striving to improve education in low-income communities.⁶ Even excluding several large nonrenewable expansion grants, the ongoing revenue base has grown at a compounded rate of 30 percent, from $12 million in 2000 to $21 million in 2002 (with $28 million anticipated in 2003), and the operating reserve now stands at almost half of the annual budget.

But Teach For America isn’t taking its current success for granted; Kopp and her staff are well aware that conditions could again deteriorate. So everyone in the organization, from Kopp down, continually asks two important questions: Are the members and alumni of the corps truly expanding educational opportunity, in the short and long run? And is the organization building the internal capacity to realize its goals, today and in the future?

Indian Education System and How to Study in India

Indian Education System and How to Study in India

(Speech by Ambassador of India H.E. Mrs. Navrekha Sharma at State Institute for Islamic Studies of North Sumatra, Medan )

Respected Dr. H.M. Yasir Nasution,
Rector of the State Institute for Islamic Studies of North Sumatra ,
All Vice Rectors, Dean, Professors & Staff,
Dear students

Selamat Pagi !!

Good morning. I am delighted to be here this beautiful morning and I thank Dr. Yasir for inviting me and giving me this opportunity to speak to all of you on “Indian Education System and How to study in India ”.

2. From time immemorial, India has been a centre for learning. In ancient times, world famous Indian institutions such as Nalanda and Vikramshila taught Philosophy, Religion, Medicine, Literature, Drama and Arts, Astrology, Mathematics and Sociology to Indian and International Schools . Nalanda in particular had flourished from 5th to 13th century and at one time had 10,000 resident students and teachers on its rolls including Chinese, Sri Lankans, Koreans and others.

- In ancient India , the Guru Shishya Parampara was well respected in which Education was worshiped and Guru(teachers) were treated very respectfully and given position above the God.

3. During the medieval period, when India was ruled by Muslim dynasties, the Muslims also contributed to this tradition by establishing elementary and secondary schools known as "Madarsas" and colleges and even universities, in their capital cities such as Delhi , Lucknow and Aligarh . Arabic was the medium of instruction, to start with but gradually under contact with Sanskrit Arabic language evolved into a new language called Urdu, which is presently spoken by North Indian Muslims and also people of Pakistan (Muslims in South India and other parts of India speak the language of their specific States). In other words, Muslims of Kerala speak Malayalam, in Andhra Pradesh, Telugu, in Tamil Nadu, Tamil and in Karnataka, they speak Kannadiga. All these are highly developed languages ( India has 18 officially recognized languages!)

4. With the arrival of the British , English language education was introduced through European missionaries. Lord Macaulay a supporter of English language and European Education, Knowledge and culture quoted as saying that " I am quite ready to take the Oriental learning at the valuation of the Orientalists themselves. I have never found one among them who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia ." Macaulay believed British knowledge was superior to Indian knowledge. Serving in the Supreme Council of India between 1834 and 1838 he was instrumental in adopting English as the medium of instruction in the institutions supported by the East India Company rather than Sanskrit or Arabic ..

5. Since India 's Independence in 1947, Government of India's Policy on Education has been radically expanded, modernized and opened up to use of other official languages. But English remains popular and with present Information Revolution the interest in it has been increasing in last few years.

6. In the past, education was respected by all, but open only to the upper castes and classes of Indian society. After Independence however, our Government removed all distinctions by law and also reserved a proportion of seats in Universities and High Schools for members of lower social strata. Jobs in Government were also reserved for them in proportion to their population. This farsighted policy of positive discrimination has created a well integrated society in which every section of society feels that they belong. To run a Democracy of one billion people would have been impossible if such an Education Policy had not been designed.

7. In the beginning Education was left to State Governments but in 1976 it became a joint responsibility of the State and the Centre. At the Centre the Ministry of Human Resource Development , is headed by a full-fledged Minister of Cabinet Rank with two junior Ministers or Ministers of State (MOS) to help him. They look after the Departments of Elementary Education & Literary and Secondary & Higher Education respectively. These two Departments are further sub-divided into five functional units namely:- Bureau of Elementary Education, Bureau of Adult Education, Bureau of School Education, Bureau of University & Higher Education & Minority Education and Bureau of Technical Education.

8. The Centre & State's role: The Centre and the States are jointly responsible for the formulation of education policy and planning. Under Directive Principals of the Indian Constitution. the country strives to provide free and compulsory education to all children up to 14 years of age but we are still to achieve this goal. Government of India made a commitment that by 2000, 6% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will be spent on education, out of which half would be spent on Primary education . In fact, 4% of GDP is actually allocated for education in which the higher education's share is only 0.7%.

9. All levels of education, from primary to higher education, are overseen by Department of Higher Education (India) and Department of School Education and Literacy , and are heavily subsidized by the Indian Government. Some 390,6565 teachers are employed by Government of India in 781,305 primary schools ( Data: UNICEF, 2005). Every year 2.5 million graduates are produced in India . Since this costs a lot, Government is under pressure to withdraw subsidies and raise the fees. Indian Government is also considering 100% foreign direct investment in Higher Education at some future date.

10. UGC: The University Grants Commission of India established in 1956, is a Central Government body through which funds for Government-recognized universities and colleges are channelised. It also confers recognition to Universities in India and conducts exams for the appointment of teachers in colleges and universities. Institutions such as All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), Distance Education Council (DEC), Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), Bar Council of India (BCI) and Medical Council of India (MCI), among others have been established under the UGC.

11. Higher Education in India is organized through Government and Private Universities and technical and professional Institutes. There are 369 Universities and 18,064 general colleges, 438 Engineering Colleges and Technological institutes and more than a 100 Medical Colleges run by Government of India. In addition there are thousands of Private Colleges , Business Schools and Institutes of Engineering. Scores of Agricultural institutes and many other specialized centers of learning and research in every subject and discipline also exist in India . India can claim to be one of the leading countries providing quality higher education to its people as well as to students and scholars from countries all over the world. However present facilities for higher studies and research are not adequate and it is projected that there will be a shortage of technical manpower in 2010. In view of the quality of higher education in India , more and more international students have been coming to our Universities for studies. Although competition is tough especially in the best known IITs and IIMs, once they make the grade students from developing countries feel a great sense of belonging and interact confidently with Indian students, with whom they share many social and cultural values.

12 Seven existing Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) and Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) have become world famous for producing top class engineers and technical graduates. Equally famous are our doctors from All India Institute of Medical Science(AIIMS) . On our Independence Day on August 15 last month, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced setting up of 370 new colleges in rural and less developed districts: also 30 new Universities, five new Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research and eight new IITs.

C. Expenditure:

13. In contrast to the expensive university and higher education offered in developed countries, higher education in India is affordable. Sometimes it is cheaper than study in Indonesia itself!! For example for a BA or B.Sc. degree in India a foreign students needs to spend US $ 2000-3000(depending on the University) whereas in Australia 's Melbourne University it costs US $ 30,000 annually. In University of Indonesia it costs US $. 5000-6000. (Costs may be seen in EdCIL web site www.edcilindia.org)

14. Under-graduate courses: A bachelor's degree in Science, Arts and Commerce take three years of study, but in vocational/professional courses in subjects like pharmacy, dentistry, architecture, medicine and technology/engineering it takes longer, i.e. from four to five and half years. For admission to undergraduate courses, the minimum qualification is high school education equivalent to Indonesia 's, SMU (Sekolah Menengah Umum) Candidates from abroad are expected to obtain 60- 70% marks in their qualifying examination for admission to courses in Science, Arts and Commerce. For foreign students there is no entrance test beyond their high school scores.

15. Post-graduate courses : Master's degree is normally of two years duration. It could either be course or research based. At the postgraduate level, admission is restricted so only the better students should apply. Some universities have started their own tests for admission to postgraduate classes.

16. PhD: Students are admitted to Ph.D courses if they are able to fulfill the eligibility criteria regarding their research competence and genuine interest in the subject of study. The admission is approved by the Board of Studies and in some cases on the recommendation of a Research Degree Committee of the concerned University.

17. The academic year usually begins in June or July and ends in March or April after annual examinations. In most Uiversities the medium of instruction is English. A list of Uversities/Institutes which offer seats to foreign students/Non-resident Indian (NRI) students is available on demand from the Consulate General of India, Medan .

18. For medical – (both Allopathic and Traditional System of Medicine), engineering and pharmacy courses , you need to apply to the Ministry of External Affairs, Student Cell, New Delhi through the Indian Embassy in Jakarta for nomination. Directions for application can be obtained from Mrs. Anju Ranjan, Second Secretary (Education) – Tel: 5255363, Fax: 5204160. E-mail: eoiisi@indo.net.id.

D. DISTANCE EDUCATION IN INDIA

19. Students can pursue education in India under Distance Education Scheme through 3 Universities in India , viz. Indira Gandhi Open University, Osmania University and Jawaharlal Nehru University. Interested students can apply after checking the websites of these Universities.

E. Scholarships by Indian Government to Indonesia :

20. Training under the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) Programme and Colombo Plan: Since 1964, under the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) Programme and Technicen Cooperation Scheme of Colombo Plan of the Government of India, Government officials and nominees of developing countries are given training in various courses. The training is provided mainly in Government and a few Private institutions specializing in rural development, mass communications, small scale industries, banking, computer technology, management and various other fields. The training is conducted in English Language and all expenses including international travel costs and living expenses are borne by the Government of India. A detailed list of training courses under ITEC is available on our website.

21 . General Cultural Scholarship Scheme ( GCSS): Government of India, through the General Cultural Scholarship Scheme (GCSS) administered by Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), grants 20 scholarships for Indonesian students every year in the fields of Arts, Architecture, Literature, Commerce and Science and degree courses in Engineering, Pharmacy and Agriculture. The scholarships are also extended for doctoral and post doctoral courses. Interested and eligible candidates may download the Application Form from Indian embassy website ( www.embassyofindiajakarta.org ).The last date for receiving application forms duly completed in all respects in 6 (six) copies, along with all supporting documents, is in last week of Ja nuary. Candidates will be required to appear in a test in the English language which is conducted in the Embassy/Consulate in Medan during second week of February every year. Candidates applying from Sumatera may send their applications to:

Mr. M.L. Chhabra
Consul General
CONSULATE GENERAL OF INDIA – MEDAN
19, Jl. Uskup Agung A. Sugiopranoto
Medan 20152, Sumatera Utara
Ph. 061-4531308, 4556452

22. Dear friends, Khalil Gibran, the famous Poet once compared an education system and society to a strong bow and a sharp arrow. The strongest bow would send the furthest arrow. That means a well focused education system will lead to a highly enlightened society and hence a developed and successful Nation. The 11 th line of Indonesia 's National Anthem says, “Bangunlah Jiwanya, Bangunlah Badannya”. This means build the Soul and build the Body of the Nation. Your founding fathers Soekarno, Sutan Shahrir, Hatta and ours such as Jawaharlal Nehru, Gandhi and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad were very clear in their mind about need for strong educational system as the foundation of a free, equitable and prosperous Nation. Education brings confidence to the individual and to a Nation, clarifies judgement and provides the moral guide to action. It is a necessary condition for individual creativity, happiness and success. A few days ago in discussion with University of Indonesia Professor, Makmur Keliat, I was shocked to discover that a newly opened course in Political Studies of South Asia was closed because there were no students interested to enroll. Money and Media usually push students into study of developed countries. Now Chinese Studies are becoming popular. But Indian Studies are not popular, only Indian films! Why? In today's globalized world knowledge is also power: so many of multi-millionaires today are between ages of 25-35 years who started life with no money but only big dream. They were able to realize their goals not through inheritance but through a sound education. In India we offer you the opportunity to acquire an education of good quality at an affordable price. Indonesia is an old friend of India and after SBY's visit in 2005 a Strategic Partner as well. I hope that at least some of you will take up this offer and study on India one day. My Embassy in Jakarta and CGI, Medan will be very happy to facilitate your plans.

Terima Kasih