Expanding Access to Equitable Higher Education in Indonesia
Written by Megan Turner, a VSFS Intern with the U.S. Department of State. She is currently pursuing a Master of Public Administration degree at the University of Pennsylvania.
With the backing of an Alumni Engagement Innovation Fund (AEIF) grant, exchange program alumna Pujaningsih and her team at Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta launched the 2023 Universal Design in Higher Education Summit. Facilitated by workshops in Padang, Banjarmasin, and Yogyakarta, the Summit focused on developing a more equitable education system for university students with disabilities. Attended by 217 online and offline lecturers from 75 universities, the workshops and online MOOCs introduced Universal Design for Learning (UDL) case studies and taught educators how to incorporate UDL practices into their own teaching.
Pujaningsih’s desire to expand education equity for disabled students began long before she received the AEIF grant, originating from her time as a Fulbright Foreign Student in 2015 at the University of Northern Iowa, where she studied Leadership and Special Education. During her exchange program, colleagues often invited her to visit their home academic institutions across the United States, and she quickly witnessed how increasing education equity for all students, regardless of their disability status, required efforts from all sides of the education system – from policymakers to educators.
When she finished her program in Iowa and returned to Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta, Pujaningsih began applying for grants, determined to expand education equity for disabled students in universities across Indonesia. After receiving the 2022 Alumni Engagement Innovation Fund, she and her team began planning the best strategy for their Universal Design in Higher Education Summit. The workshops took a unique approach because the educators in attendance were already contending with large workloads, and many were resistant to reworking entire teaching systems to boost inclusivity. Instead of overloading the workshop attendees with information, Pujaningsih and her team asked the educators to make one initial change to increase accessibility in the classroom.
The knowledge educators gained through the workshops have already directly impacted the lives of many disabled students. Prior to last year, a particular hearing-impaired student at a university in Indonesia struggled to understand course materials without any accessible systems in place to support him. When the student’s professor attended the Universal Design in Higher Education Summit, he committed to taking one simple step to enhance the student’s academic experience – providing class materials before lectures. By taking this seemingly small action, the professor drastically increased the student’s access to his university coursework. He was able to graduate on time and now has an incredibly successful career at a prestigious bank in Indonesia.
Following the success of her team’s Universal Design in Higher Education Summit, Pujaningsih hopes to continue holding workshops across Indonesia, continuing to pave the way for a more equitable education system for students with disabilities. In addition, she would like to provide training for school administrators on the importance of accessibility in education, a step that will make institutions more inclusive from the top down.
Pujaningsih’s advice to aspiring changemakers is to focus on building intentional teams composed of people around them who are passionate about shared goals. According to her, the secret to maintaining a healthy team involves, “Listening, communicating, and having fun.” She attributes her own team's continued success in expanding education equity in Indonesia to their alignment as a group and recommends that anyone who wants to make a difference in their community should build a strong, supportive team around them. The AEIF grant allowed her and her colleagues to take action on their shared dream of a more inclusive higher education system, teaching educators across their country and building a more accessible future for students with disabilities.