Tuesday, September 4, 2001

A New Online University in Indonesia Seeks to Lure Students With Relatively Low Tuition By DAVID COHEN A prominent Islamic organization in Indonesia has played a key role in the creation of an Internet-based virtual university in Jakarta, the nation's capital. The Indonesian Bangkit University Teledukasi, inaugurated in August, will offer both undergraduate and exclusively online graduate programs in information technology and business administration. It expects to attract prospective students through offering relatively low-cost tuition aimed at "preparing the nation to face global challenges," according to Adi Sasono, the cofounder and chairman of the new institution. He said that about 1,500 students have already enrolled for the program. Indonesia, the world's fourth-most-populous nation, has remained in the economic doldrums for the past four years, during which time much of the region has raced ahead of its poorer neighbor in terms of new technologies. The same period has also seen increased communal activity by the domestically based Association of Indonesian Muslim Intellectuals, an organization formed in 1990 with the aim of the moving the country's majority Islamic inhabitants to a more modern, technocratically minded era. That group, which is highly influential in Indonesia, endorsed the creation of the virtual university. In addition to the Islamic group, the new university will be supported by Malaysia's University of Tun Abdul Razak, which claims to be the first virtual college in nearby Malaysia. A four-year undergraduate program at the institution will cost students around $1,800, considerably less than, for example, many of the private colleges in cities such as Jakarta and Bandung offering programs in business management. But it is nearly twice the amount of similar programs offered at some public institutions such as the national University of Indonesia. Unlike many of the information-technology-oriented programs offered at the public universities, which are taught in English, the new institution uses the Indonesian language on its Web site. Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

Wisc. court upholds privacy of application data sought by anti-preference group Stanford donor withholds $60-million to protest Bush's stem-cell research limits A first in Division I football: Look who's kicking at Jacksonville State Alabama-Birmingham president staves off effort to remove her Former Humboldt State fund raiser faces 9 felony counts Hutu Students Trickle Back to U. of Burundi, After Fleeing in Fear of Attacks Business schools, fed up with Internet use during classes, force students to log off A new online university in Indonesia seeks to lure students with relatively low tuition