On November 29, 2015, the Coordinating Ministry of Human Development and Culture launched the National Movement of Mental Revolution focusing on three main values namely: Integrity, Work Ethic, and Gotong Royong(Mutual Aid). With this movement, Indonesian citizens are expected to be able to abolish bad habits.
From the perspective of the public administration ethic, those who hold the occupation of Public/Civil Servant /(Pegawai Negeri Sipil) (PNS) or public adminstrators have to uphold certain ethics. This is crucial because PNS or Public Administrator are the reflections of the Indonesian chracter, values, and culture.
The Public Administration Study Program (Prodi IAP) prepares its students to be individuals who uphold public adminstration ethics, not only through courses but also by way of the internalization of values that support the national movement of mental revolution.
The values are reflected in the spirituality and the basic values of Parahyangan Catholic University (SINDU) which consist of the value of openness, transformative behavior, honesty, alignment and prioritizing the poor, subsidiaries, and being non-profit minded in nature.
The learning in the prodi IAP mainly concerns the comprehension of public issues that exist in Indonesia. Those public issues are: public policy, public management and organization, public finance, and development management.
After comprehending public issues, students then practice to find the solutions by learning the theories learned not only from lecturers, but also from best practices of public organizations in Indonesia, text books and various resources available at the UNPAR’s Library.
Students of public administration also experience working with the local community through the field study work/ Kuliah Kerja Lapangan (KKL) course that is held in the seventh semester. Students of the Prodi IAP spend 30 days in the villages of West Java Province. There, they identify and analyze issues, find solutions based on the knowledge gained from courses, and design development project to overcome the issues.
Students of the prodi IAP develop good analytical skills because they create solutions for the issues in society as a logical thinking process and research. Those two main skills are obtained in all courses offered by the Prodi IAP.
As a result of the course, students create projects by using ICT. The proposed program is to create an IT-based application for vacancy information. The project won the expo and essay competition held on 54th anniversary in the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences as the first runner-up with a prize of 1.5 million IDR.
As part of UNPAR’s academic community that is world class univerity oriented, students of the prodi IAP have the opportunity to follow programs that are ‘internationalization at home’ in nature through community immersion held from November 22 to December 7 2014.
In this program, students of the Prodi IAP became students of Notre Dame University Australia. For three weeks. They studied together to comprehend society’s issues on global equality and conducted a community service program.
Through those activities, graduates of the prodi IAP UNPAR are expected to be strong candidates to become ‘agents of change’ and the main driving force behind the national movement of the Mental Revolution in Indonesia.
Source: An article “Administrator Publik sebagai Agen Perubahan Utama” in Kompas Newspaper Griya Ilmu December 29 2015 edition.
