Category Archives: Blog

Internationalization Of Higher Education, How Does It Matter?

For most sophomores, choosing an international institution seemed to be more prestigious and also great for them to get more experience and a higher level of education. Moreover, in this century, international higher education offers more various majors that are not common in their country. This is the common reason why international higher education achieves more attention and interest for the new college students.

However, does internationalization of higher is needed for them? The answer can be yes or not. You may answer yes because the internationalization of higher education can improve both lecturers and students at the same time. It also will give a great impact on universities and the college itself for the standard on international school.

Yet, the answer will be no because the traditional and public colleges and universities are still able to educate the students to get knowledge and experience. Moreover, for the developed country, it will be difficult if they switch their system and follow the international standard of higher education.

What Is Internationalization Of Higher Education?

While globalization is the process of shifting modern technology in daily life aspect, the internationalization of higher education becomes part of globalization. It means the process of integrating the system, value, goal, curriculum, teaching, and learning process, up to academic function into the international standard.

The Challenge Of Internationalization Of Higher Education

Switching a traditional public of higher education to be an international one is something common lately. However, for some developing countries with low and unstable economic conditions, it will be a big challenge to internationalize higher education.

  1. Less number of good and high-quality universities

The first challenge some countries only have some good and high quality of higher education such as universities or colleges. This happens because they cannot switch the international system if their condition is still poor.

  1. Lack of donation

Since the internationalization of higher education needs lots of costs, it is hard for them to change. Especially in developing countries, the country gives less education budget for them because most of them are used for people welfare.

  1. Lack of educated lecturer

The other challenge they may face is a lack of educated lecturers and this has happened in India. The educated lecturer is invited to work in another country for their mastering course. As result, the country has only a few doctoral degrees for their institution.

The Opportunities of Internationalization Of Higher Education

Even though it is hard to be achieved, by switching the system of Internationalization Of Higher Education, there will be more opportunities the country can get from them.

  1. Better curriculum with international standards. This includes the latest curriculum and guidebooks.
  2. Commercial advantage such as donation, sponsorship, and scholarship from the other education foundation from other country
  3. Establishing branch campuses or universities from other countries. Even though mostly it is not and high-end universities, it is still beneficial for them.
  4. Establishing an international program. So, other students may be interested to study in an international college or university.

Green School: Empowering Local Scholar Become Global Change Makers

The effect of globalization currently is spreading for all aspects of life including economic, politics, technology, and many more. The effect of globalization does not only beneficial for them but also for the educational sector. Currently, the local scholars is expected to make a mission that can be useful and beneficial for the education sector because they are an agent of change that can make something useful for the world.

However, it is not easy to achieve the mission because there are so many challenges that they must face in the future. For example, the lack of motivation, sponsorship, and also the actual condition of the scholar. Because most of them do not care about the term of change-makers and they tend to do what should they do to achieve the money.

The emergence of Green School in Bali is one of the efforts to empower the scholar to be global change-makers. They provide many activities that can make people realize the effort that can give impact to global but never forget to use the local ability and mind.

What is the Green School?

As the newcomer in Bali, John and Cynthia are curious about how the local children in Bali cannot get an education since they were young. They met children and realized that there are still many unlucky children that cannot get any basic education because of the expensive expense for school and also the availability of public schools in their area.

Finally, they initiate to make an education foundation to help children get a better education. They also provide scholar for those who have good academic scores and skills. In the first year of 2008, they only have a total of 90 students who join the foundation. Up to today, there are more than 400 students who successfully graduate school because of the scholarship that they received.

Green School provides so many programs that can be beneficial for the students and local scholars as the agent of change. The program also varies not only for the students but also for the local people who want to join the program.

What are Green School Programs and Activities?

Currently, the GS foundation has 3 main programs:

  1. Local Scholarship Program

This program helps local students to get a scholarship for access to the international school with the best quality of education. It is also useful because it prepares them to face the real world and be ready as the agent of change.

To join this program, students must meet the requirement provided by them. Generally, the students must have good academic skills, leadership skills, emotional intelligence, and also communication ability.

  1. Kul Kul Connection

This activity focuses on maintaining good relations between Green school and the local community. The program includes a free English course for children. Since the latest curriculum deletes English for the primary school, this program will be useful especially for primary students that do not receive this course at school.

This program also initiates the local community to save the earth by recycling plastic bottles to get opportunities of free English school from Green school foundation. More than 400 students from the local community of Sibang Jaya are excited to join this program.

  1. Youth activism

Same as the name, this activity focuses to empower the youth to open their voice especially for global problems such as global warming, deforestation, pollution, indigenous culture, and many more. The interesting fact is, this program may send the student to the international conference to speak up about what is in their mind, and what solution they offer to minimize the effect of the global problem. In GS, they provides 10 trips per year to 12 nations for 17 conferences.

What Do They Do To Make Global Change Makers?

By the program that Green School offers to students and children, it will make a good result in the future. A program such as an English course and scholarship helps them to get a better education than they have not received before. Moreover, youth activism can be the best way to empower the local scholars and students to deliver the message as change-makers about the opinion that still consider about local wealth.

The Importance of Education for Sustainable Development

As the primary need of human beings, education is very important. As we all have agreed, education can make someone better in many things such as skill, knowledge, attitude, communication, and many others. Traditionally, education means the process of learning and receiving information from teachers and educators for certain courses or majors and makes someone smart and able to do something from what they have learned.

However, if we see it deeply, the importance of education is more than that. The function of education spread wider for sustainable development. People must understand that we live not only for today but also for the future. Even though someone will die, they must make something that at least useful for people around them if they cannot make something big that is useful for the world.

What Is Education for Sustainable Development?

The general purpose of education is to obtain or achieving certain knowledge, information, skill as much as possible for sustainable development. Education for sustainable development includes all processes of growing and increasing skill, knowledge, attitude, to support individual and all education parties in conveying what is in their mind, the ideas, innovation, and opinion. Later, those ideas will help them to be ready in facing the real world.

The world keeps changing, so people also must change their way of thinking. Education for sustainable development must be done together by all parties. If it is done individually, it will not work effectively and cannot give a significant effect. To achieve this goal, each individual must have great developing competence that can grow bigger. Those competencies include skill, opportunity, skill, and also nonstop motivation. Motivation is a must to wake people up once they fall so they can try again when they fail. So, never lost your motivation once you fall once.

What Are The Goals Of Education For Sustainable Development?

To maintain people interest and fulfillment, education for sustainable development is important to achieve the below goals:

  1. Becoming an independent country. Since the country has been supported by people with high education and motivation for sustainable development, the country can grow and develop by itself.
  2. Becoming a highly competitive country which can be compared with the other developed country.
  3. Achieving national development for all sectors including ecological, politics, education, and economy.
  4. Preparing the best and suitable government policies is determined by the ability of each individual in facing the real-life challenge.
  5. Overcoming the deteriorating quality of human life. Year by year, the ability of the next generation may fall to a certain level because of low effort for sustainable development.

To achieve those goals, some points must be considered in preparing education for sustainable development such as:

  1. environmentally sound, it should not be harmful or damaging for the environment where people live in
  2. economically viable, since all people need something to maintain their economic condition
  3. socially acceptable, so all people can follow and do it together to achieve the goal and preparing them self to the future

Being an Engaging and Highly Effective Educator

Being a role model educator is not impossible for all new teachers. A good educator means that we are ready to face any consequences for the failure that we may do in the future. Also, you must put yourself fully into this field. If an educator is your dream and passion, it will not be difficult or take a long way for you to achieve the title of role model. But, if you did not give your best and do it with your heart, do not ever imaging getting the best result.

Everyone can teach people to do something, sharing knowledge, giving instruction to do this or that. However, not everyone can engage and teach them effectively. They need to practice every day and every time they have a chance to do it. Because, if someone does not have the skill to deliver the message effectively, the students cannot understand well what we have explained.

Moreover, students have different abilities to receive the message from the educators. Some of them are good receivers, but some of them are not. Certain methods of teachings are acceptable and understandable, but others are not. We have to do a simple survey when we teach students for the first time or just find a new place to teach.

How To Be Engaging And Highly Effective educator?

Each educator must have their way to make them more engaging to the students. They also have their tricks to make the teaching and learning process effective. Generally, you must follow some tips below:

  1. High academic skill and ability. The main role of an educator is to educate people with their knowledge that they know from a higher institution. So, it is a must for you to have high skill in academic especially for the course that they mastered. It will avoid misunderstanding when one of the students asks a question in detail.
  2. Practice makes perfect. You can hone your skill by practicing as much as you can. Practice makes you find the best method and way that you should take when facing the same problem in the future.
  3. Ask students to apply in real life. The best thing when we were in primary school, the teacher asked us to apply what we had learned in the real life. The same thing also must be done at the higher level of education. At least, we can also teach them to use the theory in our real life.
  4. Disciplined and responsible. A good educator must be discipline to their students. Once the students make any mistake, we have to remind them and show them what is better. Moreover, educators also must be responsible for what they had taught to the students. This is the reason why the high academic skill is the most important ever

The Common Mistake Mostly Done By Educators

Here are some points of common mistake you must avoid because it can ruin your reputation as engaging and highly effective educators:

  1. Never try to change the latest method of teaching. We should not use the same method of teaching to different levels of education.
  2. Lack of academic skill and knowledge. Your students may mock behind you after the class finish.
  3. Never inspire the students to do something beyond their imagination. They only teach you without asking you the great point.
  4. Lack of humor sense. This kind of educator may seem too boring and the class situation is too tense. This kind of situation will not the teaching and learning process effective but only remain stressful to the students.

Make Great Difference For Better Education

Currently, the condition of the world during the COVID-19 pandemic is getting worse day by day. Even though some countries have started over their activity for almost all of their sectors, they keep following the health protocol. As result, the number of the face-to-face meeting and learning processes is limited to online school and meetings. This is used to minimize the virus transmission from one patient without symptoms to other healthy people.

Especially in this condition, the education system makes the biggest differences in its system and curriculum. This happens because online schooling is less effective than offline or face-to-face schooling. As result, the quality of the students decreases along with the number of offline classes. If this condition happens for a long duration, the students can decrease almost all of some education category including knowledge, communication ability, problem-solving ability, analytical thinking, and also attitude.

Almost all teachers and schools maybe face the same crisis in the past 1 year. They cannot make real interaction with the students that will help them to understand the course easier than before. Moreover, the limited communication online also gives a big impact on them to deliver the message from teacher to students.

Why Does Education Important?

Most people must agree that education is important for everyone in all sectors. Starting from formal and nonformal education, courses, education foundation, and school, all kind of education is very useful for everyone who studies about it. The learning process also keeps going from time to time. There is no limitation to the duration of learning. This happens because the learning process can be done anywhere not only at school but also at home, street, and many more.

For some countries, they put education as one of the people’s rights and the government of the country must facilitate them to get a better education. Each country relies on each other to make the most skillful citizen build a strong country. Even, the county put education as one of the important things they have to do. Another reason are:

  1. Education is the basic skill that everyone must have to face in real life. Education does not only teach students about theories but also skills that they may need in the future. Even, you can easily compare people with and without education. The non-educated person can be recognized easily.
  2. Education builds people’s mindsets slowly. When children started their education from kindergarten, the teacher slowly also builds their mindset through education. It may be unseen because the teacher did not tell it by word, but they change the mindset through their action. As the owner of purest heart and mind, children can easily follow what they have seen and heard before at school. So, it is important to put your children in the best school since they were young.

Also, putting children at a certain education level also makes them more careful about the environment around them. Especially for children who spend more time at home by themselves only and lack socialization with the other, they tend to be more selfish and do not care about the condition around them. By education, the children can slowly learn and realize that they do not live alone, but there are many people around.

How To Make Differences Through The Education?

There are so many things to make difference through education that can affect the students, the communities, or even the country. However, it needs a long process to do. We can do several things such as:

  1. Put the children in any education foundation or school as early as possible to make them more eager to realize the importance of education for them. The sooner, the better the children will get the knowledge and skill from them.
  2. Improve critical thinking to make better innovation and solutions for the problem faced by the government. Commonly the problems are about the number of public schools that still far from expectation, the quality of the teacher, school facility, and many more.
  3. Provide open donations is also important to make difference through education. Our humanity sense will be sharpened by this action. Donations can help the education process in poor area to better than before.

Humanity Value: The Gift Of Education In Bali

Known as Pulau Dewata or Island of Gods, Bali becomes one of the most visited places in South East Asia. The number of foreigners always reaches its peak especially in the holiday season, especially in December. However, the beauty of this island remains what poverty in some rural area especially area that is quite far from the city or entertainment center. The backside of Bali is rarely seen by foreigners or tourists.

Even though this condition happens not only in Bali but also in other tourist city in around the world, Bali still needs more attention from the central government and other sponsorship, especially for the education sector. The number of illiterate children is still high in a mostly rural area. If this condition is still going, the quality of the next generation of Bali as the center of entertainment in Indonesia and also south-east Asia will be bad.

What Can We Do To Help Bali’s Education?

Currently, there is some education foundation that mostly founded by Foreigners who fell in love with Bali. The foreigner feels so bad when they met illiterate and non-educated children around the street or beach. Finally, they realized that there must be an institution or foundation to help them. The foundation will accept some of your help such as:

  1. Textbook or stationary
  2. Uniform
  3. Sponsorship or Donation
  4. Scholarship
  5. Volunteer teacher or educator
  6. Another School Facilities

If you can donate those things, it will be the best gift for all children who never had any educational learning from school directly. There are some education foundations in Bali that you can find on the internet. They provide so much useful information’s about the activity, progress, event, and also opportunities for the new donation.

How Does The Gift Making Positive Impact On Them?

Every gift you had given for Bali education will mean a lot to them. Even the simple and smallest thing can be useful for the improvement of Bali education. When you do not realize, the gift makes some impact such as:

  • Establishing school in the rural area

Some education foundation that already received enough donations from central government, private business, or sponsorship from foreign education foundation has successfully established school in the rural area. The school is purely built to minimize the number of illiterate children as the next generation of Balinese.

  • Providing English class near entertainment area or city center

Most visitors and travelers in Bali come from different countries around the world. They come with their language. However, mostly they speak English to the resident. So, learning English as the second language is also important for Balinese children. Their English skill ability will be useful for them in the future.

  • Job Training

Job training is one activity provided by the Bali education foundation to help the third-grade students of senior high school to prepare themselves to be ready to work. This training is useful for those who are not able to continue their education at universities.