Kalimantan students to spend year at ITS

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SURABAYA: The Kalimantan Institute of Technology has already taken in its first batch of 100 students and placed them in Surabaya while it completes the construction of its campus in Balikpapan, the Jakarta Globe says.

Sutarnyoto, the East Kalimantan governor’s deputy for welfare, said the students would study at the Sepuluh Nopember Institute of Technology (ITS) for their first year, then transfer to Balikpapan once the Kalimantan University known as ITK is completed next year.

He also thanked officials at ITS for hosting the students and providing the teaching staff to be sent to ITK.

“ITS is the only institute of higher learning in Indonesia that is truly committed to accelerating the development of education across the country,” Sutarnyoto said.

Herman Sasongko, the ITS rector’s assistant, said the Surabaya school was training the future ITK faculty.

“We have sent several of our top students on a fast-track programme in Germany and France as part of their preparations to become lecturers at ITK once the campus is ready,” he said.

He added that in the meantime, the first batch of ITK students would register as ITS students and enroll in courses alongside ITS students.

Because both are state schools, their credits will be fully transferable once they make the move from Surabaya to Balikpapan at the start of the next academic year in mid-2013.

The 300-hectare ITK campus is one of two new technology schools that the government is setting up outside Java.

The other is the Sumatra Institute of Technology, whose campus in Lampung has already been completed and which took in its first 100 students in early July.

The new schools join ITS and the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) as the leading science and engineering schools in the country.