MUHAMMADIYAH.ID, YOGYAKARTA – Muhammadiyah has contributed to education for more than a century. The movement believes that education is a strategic field to perform a constitutional mandate, educate this nation, and enhance quality of human resources of Indonesia.
At the age of 107, Muhammadiyah through Majlis of Primary and Secondary Education (Diktilitbang) has managed 166 higher education institutions comprising of 1,700 vocational, undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral programs.
“Indeed, Muhammadiyah-Aisyiyah higher education institutions in several provinces possess better quality than state universities. It shows that the institutions become a public choice,” declared Secretary of Majlis of Diktilitbang of Muhammadiyah Muhammad Sayuti.
Besides, Sayuti informed that the Diktilitbang has prepared the educational institutions to be able to adapt to industrial revolution 4.0, technological sophistication, and public order system shifts.
“It has been 65 years that Muhammadiyah manage offline and conventional higher education, and now Muhammadiyah launches Muhammadiyah Online University (MOU). The MOU offers learning flexibility, unlimited access for lifelong learning, and economical learning, learning without a geographical boundary and time difference,” stated Sayuti.
Sayuti, who is also a lecture of Graduate School of Universitas Ahmad Dahlan, expected that the MOU can portray a commitment of Muhammadiyah to develop education as an essential pillar of this movement.
The MOU was launched along with the 107th anniversary commemoration of Muhammadiyah and the grand launching of the 48th Muhammadiyah congress. Conducted at Sportorium of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY) on Monday (18/11), the MOU was officially launched by the General Chairman of the Central Board of Muhammadiyah Haedar Nashir, Treasurer of Muhammadiyah Suyatno, and Chair of the Majlis of Diktilibang Lincolin Arsyad. The MOU will begin together with the 48th Muhammadiyah Congress in Surakarta, 2020.
“The MOU provides three programs, namely Informatics Engineering, Public Health, and Management. Dozens of other programs are being prepared. The MOU is an effort of Muhammadiyah to offer higher education close to community and anticipative for the future,” explained Sayuti.