Faculty of Agriculture, Universitas Brawijaya (FP-UB) officially opens the implementation of Independent Learning, Independent Campus (MBKM), Thursday (18/02/2021). The opening was carried out directly by the Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture, Dr. Ir Damanhuri, MS, and sent off 215 students who took part in the program at the same time for the Even Semester of 2020/2021 Academic Year.
In his speech, Damanhuri conveyed, there is a fundamental shift currently in seeing the role of higher education institutions in the development. The Ministry of Education and National Culture through the Directorate General of Higher Education encourages universities to continue to increase their participation in community development and human resource development, so that it is hoped that acceleration of national development will emerge, one of them is through the implementation of MBKM in Higher Education.
“MBKM is expected to be a catalyst for the formation of link-and-match, a higher education culture that is close to reality and participates actively as well as part of the solution to problems in society,” said Damanhuri.
Through the Directorate General of Higher Education, the MBKM program was launched in early 2020. And in April 2020 the MBKM Campus guidebook was launched which in its implementation involved 8 forms of learning, which are student exchanges, internships, research, teaching in educational units, humanitarian projects, entrepreneurship, independent projects, and build a village.
“UB responds quickly to this through the Rector’s Regulation No. 34 of 2020 concerning the Curriculum for the MBKM Study Program, then also the preparation of guidelines for the implementation of the Independent Learning -Independent Campus which becomes a reference for faculties and study programs in implementing MBKM,” he said.
FP-UB, especially the Agribusiness Study Program, follows up on the spirit of implementing the MBKM program, which finally gets the opportunity to access the 2020 DIKTI MBKM grant. And,in February 2021 together with four other study programs, Agroecotechnology Study Program submitted a PK-KM (Independent Campus Competition Program) proposal from the Directorate General of Higher Education and the announcement of the proposal is scheduled for April 2021.
In the context of implementing MBKM, FP-UB gradually opens a series of collaborations with external parties, forms technical guidelines for the implementation of MBKM in the Agribusiness Study Program and Agroecotechnology Study Program, participates as a host of FKPTPI on-line workshop on November 30, 2020 with the agenda of forming an agreement in MBKM implementation of all agricultural tertiary institutions in Indonesia, conducted a series of socialization with lecturers and students related to the implementation of MBKM, and also recorded to the three meetings with MBKM FP-UB partners.
Since the release of MBKM students and also the opening of MBKM FPUB with partners, FP-UB noted that there are 33 partners who have been actively involved in the implementation of MBKM. FP-UB MBKM partners come from government agencies, research and development centers, research centers, private companies, non-profit companies, high schools, junior high schools, BUMDes, and also non-governmental organizations in the Self-Help Agriculture and Rural Training Center (P4S).
“The extraordinary support from partners for the implementation of MBKM FP-UB, opens big hopes that the implementation of MBKM will have a positive impact. Not only for students who are more independent, creative, and have the capacity to face future challenges, but it also opens opportunities for greater positive externalities to emerge from the university-private-community-government harmonious interaction, “he explained.
The MBKM Student implementation is carried out by still paying attention to health protocols in the era of the Covid-19 pandemic, so that there is no significant mobility in implementing this MBKM. The choice of partner location is adjusted to the closest location to the student’s domicile. Reminding the distribution of locations for student MBKM implementation, they are East Java, Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Central Java, East Kalimantan, and North Sumatra. At the end of the activity, students will get credit recognition for a maximum of 20 credits and get a certificate of MBKM Period 1 FP-UB executor.
At the end of his remarks, he hoped that the MBKM partnership would continue to be developed for greater benefit for universities, companies, and also the entire community. “This hope is certainly the result of cooperation that mutually supports all parties in order to play an active role in the development of human resources and the development of the entire Indonesian nation,” Damanhuri concluded. [SUJ / Humas UB/ Trans. Iir]
