Public Relations Team - As announced by the Minister of Education and Culture, Nadiem Makarim, Undergraduate (S1) students are free to choose learning activities outside the study program which are taken for two semesters or equal to 40 credits.
This policy driven all universities to carry out a transformation in the curriculum, from the previous-one to the Merdeka Campus Curriculum.
Implementation of this new curriculum amidst of Covid-19 pandemic is indeed a great challenge, but all universities across Indonesia must face the same challenge to develop their credibility.
UPN Veteran Jakarta through the Institute for Learning Development and Quality Assurance (LP3M) held a Finalization of the Merdeka Campus Curriculum Review. It was conducted for three days started from 11 August to 13 August 2020 at Hotel Amarossa, Jakarta.
Satria Yudhia as the Head of LP3M in his report said "since Tuesday, LP3M together with the study program team conducted a curriculum presentation and curriculum finalization, as we from LP3M completed the task to process the credibility of Merdeka Campus Curriculum, so it could be implemented" said Satria.
Satria also added that on Thursday (13/08/20, there was an agenda for the coordination meeting regarding class preparation for the new semester of 2020/2021 "this is important to do because we are still in a pandemic condition where Long Distance Lecture (LDL) will be started on September 15th, and we should be more well-prepared since the previous conditions for LDL (in the last semester) were carried out as an emergency plan" explained Satria.
In the same time, Rector of UPNJ, Erna Hernawati messaged "I am very thankful to all of the team from faculty and LP3M for completing this Merdeka Campus Curriculum, which this new curriculum that designed and made by UPNVJ is absolutely a significant action regarding to changes in accordance with Ministry of Research and Technology (KEMENRISTEKDIKTI) and Ministry of Education and Culture (KEMENDIKBUD). While facing this current pandemic it is undoubtedly heighten the challenge. As I can see for myself that the process was not easy and also consumed some time. We do this as a proof for our responsibility for the students to get their rights. In the future, this new curriculum will be signed or ratified according to the plan which will be carried out on Wednesday, August 19, 2020." explained the Rector.
Lidya Primta Surbakti, Head of the Learning Development Center in LP3M, reported that the number of participants who took part in the Merdeka Campus Curriculum Finalization totaled 50 people including Study Program teams from five faculties. In her report, Lidya said that the participants who took part in this activity were all undergraduate study programs except the faculty of health sciences and medical, this was in accordance with the Ministry of Education and Culture's policy where all faculties could applied this new curriculum except for the health study program.
"Merdeka Campus Curriculum is actually trying to create a flexible graduates whose not really fixated with the university competence but adding other competencies outside the university. After this, we have a second agenda regarding the preparation of new semester of 2020/2021 academic year which will start on 15 September 2020. Apparently we are going to discuss the calculation of credits, online syllabus, flipped classroom, cool online lecture application, and mechanism for large and small classes” said Lidya.
"Previously we carried out emergency LDL but for now we call it LDL New Normal where it is much more planned and also not to mention that our government is very focused on implementing this new education method. Currently there are some training for lecturers (with minimum of three training) conducted by the Ministry of Education and Culture regarding how to make non-boring learning methods to make students be more passionate and encouraged. In this case, it will be implemented at UPNVJ. These training supposedly become new guideline for lecturers in implementing LDL in New Normal situations" said Lidya.
At the end of the event, Dean of every faculties beside from medical study program submitted a curriculum that had been processed and finalized to be ratified by the Rector of UPNVJ.