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170 OPEN AND DISTANCE EDUCATON IN ASIA
Good Practices from AAOU Members
graduates who aspire for further higher involved 27 Regional Offices (ROs) better
education, UT developed three other known as Unit Program Belajar Jarak Jauh
faculties, namely Faculty of Economics (FE), (UPBJJ), which were located within the
Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Science campus of state universities. The collaboration
(later changed to Faculty of Science and was required to enhanced UT’s acceptance
Technology or FST), and Faculty of Social in society and especially in academic milieu.
dan Political Sciences (later on changed to Those state universities provided not only
Faculty of Law, Social and Political Sciences or buildings and human resources as the Heads
FLSPS). These three Faculties are open to any of ROs, but also allowed UT to involve their
prospective students from any background as lecturers to develop course and examination
long as they graduate from high school levels. materials, as well as to become tutors. In its
development, the nature of the collaboration
As an open university, UT has an open with universities changed dynamically in line
admission policy: no selection test nor age with the changes in various factors including
limitation (including the year of high school the government regulations and UT’s
completion time), and no time limit for increased capacity to be more independent.
completion. UT also adopts a ‘multi-entry Over the years, the locations of ROs move
& multi-exit’ policy as well as recognizes outside university campuses and Heads of
‘prior learning’, which gives high flexibility ROs gradually replaced with UT’s internal
to students to pursue their education in human resources. UT’s collaborations for
accordance with their circumstances. UT’s course and examination authors, as well
vision and mission today responds to the as tutors however remain continuing until
UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), present time. Many universities believe that
particularly SDG4, which addresses Education by allowing their lectures to help UT, they
and Lifelong Learning. also gain advantages. One of the advantages
is that as the lecturers received training from
UT was also designed by the Government UT on how to design instructions, to write
to collaborate with other universities and a course, to write good assessment items,
educational establishment in Indonesia. This and to become tutors, they become better
is to allow UT accepts and provides services lecturers for their own teaching in their
to students in all provinces throughout the respective universities.
country. At the beginning, UT operations
Universitas Terbuka (UT)