On Friday, April 19th, 2024, EuroInsight experienced a fruitful and prospective audience. Ambassador Mayerfas and Education and Cultural Attaché, Prof. Agus Setiabudi welcomed Casper Copper and Else van Nieuwkerk at the Indonesian Embassy in The Hague on 19th April 2024. Mr Copper and Van Nieuwkerk are respectively Public Policy Manager and Head of Partnerships and Development of Nldigital, Breukelen. The meeting was also attended by Paul van der Veer of IN-IT International/ EuroInsight and Gunar Yadi of EuroInsight who ventured to connect Indonesian public stakeholders in higher education and the IT association.
The goal of this cooperation is to pave the way for boosting the ongoing certified internship programmes for IT students from Indonesia’s HEIs in the Netherlands through the recently launched Indonesian government initiative: the Indonesian Global Internship Program (IGIP) funded by the Endowment Fund for Education Agency (LPDP). Meanwhile, the expected benefit of the digital economy in the Netherlands is to help alleviate IT talent shortages in this country.
Ambassador Mayerfas warmly welcomed this plan and hoped it could be implemented in the foreseeable future. He conveyed a special message from President Joko Widodo urging Indonesian students in the Netherlands to learn the wisdom behind the Dutch work ethics that have placed the Netherlands into the league of developed nations. Ambassador Mayerfas also expected this certified internship collaboration could be gradually expanded beyond the IT sector in the Netherlands as he was convinced that in Europe it is in the Netherlands that Indonesian students and expats feel foremostly at home due to culinary, historical and cultural connections.
Mr Copper and Ms Van Nieuwkerk wished to socialise this initiative first informally with their interested members. They hoped in a couple of months follow-up formal meetings could take place with more concrete plans of action.
Paul van der Veer underscored that every batch of the certified internship programmes should be between two to three years to maximise the benefits for the HEIs, students and the private sectors that offer places for the traineeship. The internship participants would receive soft skills reinforcement, coaching and accompaniment, especially in the first six months of each batch, which would become a crucial phase for IN-IT International and EuroInsight consultants to play their roles.
We anticipate a long way to go. Again, we cite Ambassador Mayerfas that “through this meeting, we have taken the first step” to make this project a reality.
