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Partnership with leading schools in Indonesia

The University of Twente is to work with BPK Penabur, a schools association based on the islands of Java and Sumatra in Indonesia.

BPK Penabur includes four ‘Nasional Plus’ schools and two international high schools, similar to Dutch secondary schools. These schools aim to become leading international schools, where students will undergo preparation to study abroad. A delegation from the schools visited the University of Twente in October.

The University of Twente is one of the first foreign universities to join forces with BPK Penabur. Jan Willem Polderman, programme director of Applied Mathematics at Twente, is coordinating the partnership. The initial contact was made by Rudy Kurnia, who was born in Bandung, Indonesia. Kurnia is a mathematician who gained a PhD at the University of Twente earlier this year, and who has developed a tool to predict the behaviour of waves in water. He now works as a postdoctoral researcher, partly at Twente and partly in Bandung, Indonesia.

Talents

‘This partnership could really benefit both institutions,’ says Polderman. ‘Penabur is looking for a leading university overseas to send their talented students to. Twente wishes to internationalize further by offering places to exactly this kind of international students.’
Ezra Theodores, director of BPK Penabur in Sukabumi, is sure that his students will expand their horizons and skills by studying abroad. ‘We are looking forward to a fruitful partnership with the University of Twente. It offers high-quality education and research. There is a large international community in Twente and a lot of personal contact with the students. In Indonesia, demand for skilled technicians and engineers is high, which is another reason that we are really looking forward to working with the University of Twente.’

Varied programme

Theodores and his colleagues followed a varied programme during their visit to the University of Twente. The delegation attended lectures from the programmes in Applied Mathematics, Technical Computer Science and Creative Technology. They have also met with PPIE (the Indonesian study association), the International Christian Fellowship and Indonesian students, including a first-year CreaTe student who attended school in Sukabumi. They have had lunch with the Rector, Ed Brinksma, and colleagues from Marketing and Communication and the International Office, and they also visited the Open Air Museum.