Prlf
The birth of the first university in the world was a sign that human was experiencing a massive change, and human does not stop to evaluate where 6 million years ago before the present we were still unidentified as human seemed still chimpanzees. But million by million years we experience evolution to be the smartest mortal in the world.
Early 19th century we massively have overcome many problems of human which were before unsolved by previous generation, yet why can we do it or how can we do it? The answer is the present of university.
Short story of the first university, Al-Qarawiyyin University, founded in 859 ADS by a woman named Fatima al-Fihri in Fez, Morocco. The university became a solution at the moment for societies who were uneducated, it was a place to exchange information between Muslim and non-Muslim, then they knew one another, and the majors were related for the people because the big deal that they had was religion, so this will be our topic to discuss in this article.
Do we still need irrelevant major with our environment, or should the university provide just a few major for the students that represent their place need?
Indonesia especially is known as Land of a thousand island which means Indonesia has many islands, and because every island has different location, it also tells us that they have different need, for example; Lombok is small island as well as the people who live in Lombok work as farmers, fisher man and seller largely, they do not even recognize what Chat GPT, Deepseek, Informatics and other high technology are, why? Lombok people do realize that they do not even need those things in their work as farmer or fisher man, so they do not go to university just to take any irrelevant major at university, yet the university has been holding its idealism with many majors.
Professor Bagus Muljadi once said;” university must be a solution for the problem of society”. unfortunately, now university just become a machine of producing unemployment, or the alumnus become less value when they join to the society directly, does not mean they are uneducated, but further than that they do not have capacity that their environment or place need.
I was interviewing some people who live in pringgabaya which is part of Lombok, largely they work as farmer where it is too far from their educational background, and of them was ever taking architecture during his collage, but after graduating, he become a farmer as no place or company is he able to work or go.
As the result people’s sight about university is bad, turns out that university is one of massive changes human has ever made to lessen even delate the obstacle of people. We can communicate, commute and do browsing easily now since university has existed, it is paradoxical on other side university becomes a solution, but the other one is boomerang to produce worthless graduate. It is very sad to see solution that we have invented for many years turn to a problem as we run it over.
The solution is high table and university must collaborate to provide real and proper courses for the students to advance their respective lands, Lombok people do not decline technological development, yet it must be aligned with their work or everyday activity, not only Lombok but also on many Indonesian islands or more broadly all countries that have the same problem.
Once again, every course is important when it is laid in a good and right place, and we believe if it is laid in a good and right way, the problem of every land will be solved.
