The crown prince of England Charles in his visit to the Keraton Yogyakarta (Yogyakarta Palace) admitted that he is impressed with the inter-religion relationship dialogue program developed by Gadjah Mada University along with two other universities, State Islamic University (UIN) and Duta Wacana Christian University (UKDW).
Prince Charles conveyed this in front of the Sri Sultan Hamengkubuwono X and UGM representations on Tuesday (4/11) at Keraton. Sultan said that the prince even encourages Oxford University in England to establish cooperation with UGM in developing the master and doctoral program in Religion and Cross-cultural Studies
Sultan also added that Prince Charles is planning to develop the islamic and environmental study as one of the topics discussed at the dialogue with religion figures at the Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta.
Prince Charles arrived at the Keraton on 11.50 and was received by Sri Sultan Hamengkubuwono X and his wife, GKR Hemas. After having conversation for several minutes with the King of Yogyakarta he met with the Executive Secretary of UGM Djoko Moerdiyanto MA, the Executive Director of the Center of Religion and Cross-Cultural Studies (CRCS) UGM Dr Zainal Abidin Bagir, and six students from master and doctoral program of Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies (ICRS) from three universities, which are UGM, UIN and UKDW.
Prince Charles believes that the program in UGM is more advance than other similar program in universities around the world, since UGM has many diversities and the doctoral program is a result of three universities consortium.
After the dialogue, Prince Cahrles accompanied by Sri Sultan wacthed the “Golek Menak†dance, a creation of Sri Sultan HB IX. After that the prince continued his journey to Krapyak School of Koranic studies of Yogyakarta and Borobudur Temple, Magelang.