Universitas Negeri Semarang (Unnes) Goes To World Class University
Universitas Negeri Semarang (Unnes), once called IKIP, is one of well-known universities in Semarang, Central Java. Unnes is located in Sekaran, Central Java. Unnes was declared as a conservation university in March 12, 2010 by The Education Ministry, Mohammad Nuh, officially. And including UI GreenMetric World University, Unnes is at the 32nd rank. By declaring the conservation university, Unnes bent on protection, utilization, and development in natural resources and noble cultures. The conservation also applies on Unnes Tridharma which is education, research and social service. Sekaran, Kelud, Bendan, Pegandan, Karanganyar and Tegal are the unseparable sites of Unnes. As the former of IKIP, then most of the focus of the university is in their education program. There are eight faculties in Unnes, they are education faculty, language and arts faculty, social faculty, economics faculty, law faculty, mathematics and science faculty, engineering faculty, and sports faculty. Each faculty is headed by dean and the dean is helped by assistants. Each faculty consists of several majors headed by department chairman. Also some majors consist of education program and non-education program.
Education faculty consists of guidance and counseling major, curriculum and educational technology major, primary school teacher education major, pre-childhood teacher education and psychology major. Language and art faculty consist of Indonesian language and letters, region (Javanese) language and letters, English language and letters, foreign language and letters, fine arts, and dance. Social faculty consists of history major, geography major, law and citizenship major, sociology and anthropology major. Mathematics and science faculty consist of mathematics major, physics major, biology major, chemistry major and science program. Engineering faculty consists of civil engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, services and production engineering, and chemistry engineering. Sports faculty consists of physical health education and recreation, athletic training education, sport science, and public health sciences. And the last but not least is law faculty, which only consists of jurisprudence, for this moment. As the dean of law faculty and staffs are planning to open new majors.
Besides being a conservation university, Unnes also wants to spread its wings to be a world class university. World Class University, based on Philip G. Altbach, is ranking among the foremost in the world, of an international standard of excellence. Based on Webometrics.info, Unnes is at the 33rd rank as the world class university, in Indonesian regions. It’s not a piece of cake to build a world class university as several requirements are to be filled. Research quality, graduate employment, international outlook, and teaching quality are the several requirements of university, including Unnes, which want to get world class university title.
The first requirement is research quality. A university should have focus on their research or development in certain subjects which it can be their special quality. For a better one, the subjects have closeness to nature, social and culture situation. The result of a research has benefit for society, directly or not. Peer review and citations per faculty are the indicators of research quality. The research is called fine when the percentage of peer review reaches 40% and the citations per faculty reach 20%. For instance, Harvard University, the best university in the world based on Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) 2010, has the perfect percentage for both indicators.
The second is graduate employment. Before graduation, usually the university students have plans of their future by collecting links as much as they can. The links may consist of the member of deans, lectures and even the heads of companies. They realize that it is important to have links as it makes them easier to find jobs. Hence, when they apply to the companies, private or public, they have higher possibility to be accepted by the companies. Then, the university observes how many graduate students are accepted in companies, though being civil servant, private employees, or even an entrepreneur. By observing, the university can assess how qualified their graduate students are. Recruiter review is the indicator of graduate employment and it has 10% score.
The third is international outlook. Based on webometrics.info, Unnes is on 83rd rank while compared with Institute of Technology Bandung (ITB) is on 8th rank, Universitas Gajah Mada (UGM) is on 10th rank, and Universitas Indonesia (UI) is on 15th rank. Furthermore, Unnes is on 2754th rank university in the world. It proves that Unnes has less popularity than those universities. Unnes should be more participate in international events as it can open the horizon of every universities in the world that here, in Indonesia, in Semarang, there is a conservation university which is Universitas negeri Semarang (Unnes), ready to compete with others top universities in the world. Besides that, Unnes should participate in international events; Unnes should have international faculty and international students. As both are the indicators of an international outlook and each indicator have 5% score.
The last but not least is teaching quality. Unnes keeps increase the quality of its human resources as it suits to main missions and functions. Now, the number of academic staffs and non-academic staffs are 1431 which consist of 59 doctors, 588 masters, 286 bachelors, 30 professors, 377 lektor kepala, 260 lektor, 218 specialist assistants, and 50 instructors. For the last five years, the lectures development met a significant increasing. At this moment, some of the lectures are continuing their doctors study either domestic or going abroad. Therefore, the investments of development human resources lead to improvement and increasing the education quality in Unnes. Training for academic staffs and non-academic staffs, human resources workshop, participating staffs in seminar are the action of Unnes to increase the ability of human resources. Student faculty is the indicator of a university that have fine in teaching quality and it has to be 20%.
In summary, after Unnes had declared as a conservation university, its next aim is to be a world class university. But, Unnes realized that it can build over a night. Unnes should work hard in many sectors like the president of university and his staffs, board of trustees, lectures, researchers, librarians, technicians, laboratory assistants, adequate funding, adequate facilities, students, alumnus, and stake holders. Besides those sectors, Unnes should pay close attention to research quality, graduate employability, international outlook and teaching quality as those, based on The Times Higher Education Supplement-Quacquar elli Symonds (THES-QS) World Rankings, are the requirements of university, which deserved the world class university title.
