Palangkaraya, C Kalimantan (ANTARA News) - Vice President Jusuf Kalla has stated that Islamic private institutes of higher learning (PTIS) must improve their quality to be able to compete at the national level.

"They must first compete at the national level before trying to compete at the global level, so that (their quality) can be measured and achieved more easily," he stated while delivering a keynote address at a national working meeting of PTIS and international workshop at Muhammadiyah University in Palangkaraya, capital of Central Kalimantan province, on Wednesday.

Kalla noted that PTIS should take bigger steps to be able to compete at a national level.

Quality is important when it comes to education, he remarked.

Education is progressive rather than regressive, because it focuses on the needs of the future to make life better, he reiterated.

"If we talk about education, particularly quality, then the question will be the kind of education that should be developed in the future," he revealed.

He further stated that PTIS should also set a qualitative target, for instance, for the next five years.

He pointed out that 50 percent of the top 10 institutes of higher learning in the country are included in PTIS.

"We should not think of how to compete at a global level but at a national level first. We should not have a dream that is not reasonable because every institute of higher learning wants to be a world-class university," he remarked.(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
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