Five students from different departments at fPz had an opportunity to be selected to participate in a 10-day program of Campus Asia Summer School with a total of 24 college students from China, Korea, Thailand, and Japan which took place from 23 to 31 August 2022. This program is part of a consortium of universities in five countries, i.e. Hiroshima University (Japan), Beijing Normal University and Chancun University (China), Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (South Korea), Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia (Indonesia), and Kasetsaart University (Thailand), which agree to conduct international collaboration to improve the quality of highly diverse human resources in Asia in order to shape college students who have inclusive perspectives.
There are four schemes in the Campus Asia, in which Summer Program is an annual program launched in 2021 and will be carried out up to four years from now. The other three schemes are joint e-course which began in 2022; short exchange visit to Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia which will be held this early September 2022; and one semester exchange, in which UPI will send two delegates to Hiroshima University in October 2022.
Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia participants in Summer School are Ahmad Fauzy (Physics Education), Aninda Putri Gunawan (English Language Education), Chintia Khorunnisa and Andlily Aprilia Rahmawati (Special Education), and Nisaudzakiah Utami (Technology and Vocational Education). Some of these participants have taken part in an e-course themed Inclusion and Diversity which was taught collaboratively by Dr Norimune Kawai (Hiroshima University) and Arif Hidayat, Ph.D. Ed. (Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia) since January 2022
This Summer School was organized into lectures, group discussions, idea mining seminar, workshop, and excursion. The participants were given opportunities to engage with superior research from lecturers in Hiroshima University, which include Ultrasound in Linguistics, Learning Engineering in STEM learning, research in Cultural and Religious Diversity, and neuroscience of cognitive aspect in foreign language studies. By the end of the program, the participants presented their knowledge and experience in exploring one of the topics after having direct discussion with the researcher from the chosen topic.
The coordinator of Campus Asia from Hiroshima University, Professor Kazuhiko Koike expressed his gratitude for the presence and contribution from Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia delegates who had actively involved and presented the work well. Meanwhile, the supervisor from UPI, Arif Hidayat PhD Ed, who was present in the location, said that this program is beneficial to give global and multi-perspective horizon for the students in the effort to build and support a more inclusive individual and society.
According to Aninda Putri Gunawan, one of the participants of Summer School, the activities in the Summer School had opened a new perspective on inclusive education. In addition, the lectures by the professors were very useful to be applied in the classroom teaching learning process. Aninda successfully got the third place in the presentation session with her presentation “Inclusive Education in Teaching Foreign Language” with Kim Sumin from Hankuk University of Foreign Studies and Wang Dejiang from Beijing Normal University.
Another participant, Andily Aprilia Rahmawati, said that the most impressive from this program was that learning about inclusivity and diversity in different countries was very fun. There were many benefits, such as exploring theories on inclusive education, getting introduced to various technologies to support inclusivity, and sharpening language skills by interacting with students from many countries. In the end of the program, all students had final presentations assessed directly by all the professor. The last presentation delivered by Andily was even assessed by Professor Delakorda Yawashima, the Director of CEDAR, a world peace organization.
