Singapore President Visits Gajah Mada University

Yogyakarta, Nov 30 (ANTARA) - Singapore`s President Tony Tan Keng Yam visited one of Indonesia`s top state universities, the University of Gajahmada, in Yogyakarta on Friday. In a dialog with students he raised the importance of education for a nation`s progress. "Universities affect a country`s development very much and therefore education is a must factor for a country," he said. About Singapore he said that it does not have a lot of natural resources and so human resource development has been one of its focuses for national development. "Sustainable human resource development is very important especially in the current global era," the president, who is a former education minister, said. President Tony Tang said Singapore receives students from anywhere who wish to pursue studies in that country including Indonesia. "We hope there will be a student exchange program between Singapore and Indonesia later to deepen the relations between the two countries," he said. The university rector, Pratikno, meanwhile said on the occasion that Gajahmada which is also the country`s oldest university has actually held close cooperation with universities in Singapore, one of them is the National University of Singapore. "The cooperation is connected with joint researches and exchange of student and university staff. Universities in Singapore are the place where academics from across the world meet," he said. He said cooperation with Singapore would be focused more on researches on food, energy, disaster management, environment and bio-diversity. In the cooperation Gajahmada would not like to become a mere consumer but producer of sciences, he added. In view of that he said UGM would set up a "Center for Indonesia Knowledge and Resource" to develop sciences so that Indonesia would have a say in the international scientific competition. He said Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia are currently also promoting an ASEAN University Network in preparation for the ASEAN Community.