Written by Yusri Nasution, Tanoto Foundation North Sumatra

Tanoto Foundation continues to support the improvement of education quality at one of its partner areas, Labuhanbatu District in the province of North Sumatra. This could be seen from Tanoto Foundation’s recent mentoring activities of the District’s Schools Working  Group as well as Teachers Working Group. Through such support, it is hoped that the schools and stakeholders at Labuhanbatu District could collaborate better.

During this mentoring session, the teachers and other school stakeholders were trained in topics such as teachers capacity improvement, development and maintenance of small yet attractive library, and encouraging and maintaining students hygienic habits.

To ensure that the training participants continue to collaborate with and learn from each other, they continued to meet at sub-district levels even after the training sessions were completed. They used these sub-district level meetings to learn what other schools have done as well as the results or failures from the other places.

In addition to strengthening the link among the schools at Labuhanbatu District, Tanoto Foundation’s mentoring in the topics mentioned above also improved the collaboration with various parts of District Government. For example, for the training of students hygienic habits, schools must work with District Education Office and District Health Office. Further, to ensure that the students and schools stakeholders develop and maintain an environment-friendly attitudes and habits, the schools must also work with the District Environmental Body. In addition, these District Offices must also coordinate with each other to provide effective guidance as well as monitoring and evaluation efforts.

Tanoto Foundation has been supporting more than 320 schools in rural areas of North Sumatra, Jambi, and Riau as part of its effort to improve quality of and access to education. Around 38,00 students and 4,400 teachers are the beneficiaries of Tanoto Foundation programs.

One of many characteristics of a developed nation is the big role that research plays in developing the nation’s industry. A country with high quality and number of research will benefit greatly from these researches.

According to Indonesian Institute of Science, the ratio of researcher per population in a developed country is at least 2,000 researchers per one million of population. In Japan, the number is 6,000. In Malaysia and Singapore, the number is 503 and 570, respectively. Unfortunately, Indonesia still has a long way to go. Here, there are 199 researchers per one million of population.

To decrease this gap, a concerted effort by the Government and various education institutions is needed. The private sector is also expected to support this endeavor and improve the public awareness on the importance of research.

Indonesian education institutions, as centers where knowledge is developed and used, must lead the efforts to produce young researchers. So far, out of 16,000 researchers in Indonesia, around 70% come from higher education institutions. The quality of some Indonesian researchers is comparable with that of researchers from developed nations. For example, there is Warsito P. Taruno who discovered Electrical Capacitance Volume Tomography (ECVT,) the latest shuttle plane walls scanning technology currently used by NASA.  In telecommunication, Indonesia also has Khoirul Anwar who discovered the 4G LTE technology.

However, Indonesia needs more Warsitos and Khoiruls. Further, Indonesia needs more high quality researches with high quality results. At the same time, the public and industry also need to be able to access information relevant to different topics of research. With such support from the Government, education institutions, private sectors, and other stakeholders, then the young researchers of Indonesia could work hard and provide results that could contribute to the improvement of lives in Indonesia and other parts of the world.

Tanoto Foundation held a two-day training for its Regional Champion Scholarship recipients recently. Carried out together with its corporate partners, Asian Agri and APRIL, this training aimed to introduce the institutions to as well as improve the soft skills of the scholarship recipients or Tanoto Scholars.

During the first day of the training, participants learned about different topics including how to improve their communications skills. They also learned to argue effectively.

In addition to learning about organizations vision and mission, these Tanoto Scholars also learned about the work culture of the organizations that are based on three principles: Knowledge, Health, and Social, and Focus on Sustainable Improvement.

“As a college student, to learn about culture of an organization is a valuable experience.  Moreover, I learned it from top company like APRIL and Asian Agri. I am grateful to get Tanoto Foundation scholarship. With this scholarship, I have the opportunity to receive soft skill training to improve my ability,” said Rizky, one of the participants.

During the second day, the Tanoto Scholars visited Asian Agri Learning Institute (AALI), a training center to develop human capitals for the oil palm industry. The participants learned how employee candidates are trained to improve their managerial, leadership, and technical skills.

Regional Champion Scholarship is a Tanoto Foundation scholarship program for Undergraduate level. Available for high school graduates in North Sumatra, Riau and Jambi, Tanoto Scholars receive monthly living allowance and tuition fee support until they graduate. Afterward, they will work with companies of RGE Indonesia Group, including Asian Agri and APRIL. This Scholarship program is implemented in collaboration with 28 partner universities, both public and private from all over Indonesia. To date, more than 2,330 students have received scholarships from Tanoto Foundation. A total of 134 students are recipients of Regional Champion Scholarships.