Universitas Gadjah Mada has sent as many as 280 students to join the student community service – empowerment programme (KKN-PPM) this year. There are 17 international students among them. All of them will be assigned to provinces of Yogyakarta Special region, Central Java, West Nusa Tenggara, and East Nusa Tenggara, lasting from 1 November-31 December 2015.
UGM Director for Community Service, Prof. Ir. Irfan Dwidya Prijambada, M.Eng., Ph.D, said during the programme, the students would be supervised by ten field lecturers and one coordinating lecturer.
“Those students will be dispatched to several provinces and they will raise ten themes during the project,” said Irfan.
Vice-Rector for Research and Community Service, Prof. Dr. Ir. Suratman, M.Sc., said the KKN-PPM was an answer to the need of community empowerment. Until this year, KKN UGM has been conducted in 27 provinves, 107 regencies, 200 sub-districts, and 310 villages.
Suratman hoped the extent of the spread of the programme would be able to drive economic growth and people’s prosperity.
The students are expected to become the agent of change whilst playing the role as motivator, innovator, and facilitator for the people that they help empower.
“This process will drive the process of recipocral learning between students and society. The soft skills of the students and society will also grow,” he said.
The KKN-PPM has proved to draw attention from the international academics as contributions to the world from national education in community empowerment. Participation in this programme has come from international academics including from ACICIS, University Teknologi Malaysia, and Hansheo University.