FKIP – The Student Executive Board (BEM) of the Faculty of Teacher Training and Education (FKIP), Sebelas Maret University (UNS) Surakarta held a public discussion to evaluate the cost of education. This discussion was held offline on Friday (31/5/2024), at the PLB Hall, Building E, FKIP UNS.

This activity was held with the aim of providing space for students and lecturers related to the increasingly high cost of education in higher education. The high cost of education in higher education causes a lot of unrest for students, especially new students. In this case, this public discussion is very important to be held as a means for students to find out the regulation of tuition fees in higher education and become a middle ground in students’ concerns about the cost of education.

“I hope that by holding a public discussion at the moment of national education, it will be able to spark student unrest to care about the current condition of education. So that there will be many students who take part in participating in building education in Indonesia,” hoped Kamaluddin Miqdad, as President of BEM FKIP 2024.

This public discussion activity presented two speakers, namely Dr. Salman Alfarisy Totalia, S.Pd., M.Si., Lecturer in Economic Education and Drs. Pardoyo as the initiator and activist of the community concerned with public education. Both speakers delivered material related to the financing of higher education which is still a big problem for the community.

The first speaker, Dr. Salman Alfarisy, said that by regulation, higher education is a tertiary need, not primary because Indonesia still stipulates 12 years of compulsory education. Currently, education in Indonesia still has various problems for the community, the 3 main problems are unequal education, education quality, and relevance. Then, in higher education, cost is still a major problem due to the high cost of higher education.

“The solution to the problem of higher education costs can be done with Cost Structure Analysis (CSA), namely by involving the entire education community, government, agencies, principals, teachers, and students. For example, the preparation of Affirmation of Secondary Education (ADEM) student financing conducted by the Education Financing Service Center, Secretariat General of the Ministry of Education and Culture in collaboration with FKIP UNS can be used as a comparison for the preparation of CSA UKT,” said Dr. Salman Alfarisy.

Furthermore, the second speaker, Drs. Pardoyo delivered material related to the main issues of education and UKT fees. Drs. Pardoyo explained that the fundamental problems in the world of education include the teacher certification program that deviates from its original purpose, the opposition related to the International Standard School Referral (RSBI) program, the reduction of funds in the Mover School Program, and the rapid change of curriculum.

“The main problem in higher education is the UKT financing. UKT itself is a portion of the single tuition fee borne by each student based on their economic ability. However, in reality, the UKT fees borne by students are still inappropriate coupled with the PTN-BH policy,” said Drs. Pardoyo.

Reporter: Nila Prihartanti
Editor: Budi Suseno

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