The Fulbright Program is the US government’s premier academic exchange program. (Photo: State Dept/Budi Sudarmo)

Jakarta: On Monday, the governments of Indonesia and the United States (US) deepened their commitment to educational partnership by renewing the Fulbright Arrangement.

This bilateral arrangement expands upon the Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in the field of Education signed in December 2021 by Indonesian Minister of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology Nadiem Makarim and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Secretary General of the Indonesian Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology Suharti and US Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Lee Satterfield signed this arrangement on the implementation of the Fulbright Program in Indonesia on the sidelines of the G20 Cultural Ministerial Meeting in Magelang, Central Java.

“During this 70th anniversary year of the Fulbright program in Indonesia, I am thrilled to see this program continue to grow and deepen academic and cultural ties between the United States and Indonesia,” Assistant Secretary Satterfield said in a press release on Tuesday.

This arrangement paves the way for US Fulbright Scholars who will travel to Indonesia to lecture at Indonesian universities, and US Fulbright Student English Teaching Assistants (ETAs) who will co-teach English with Indonesian English teachers at Indonesian high schools throughout the country.

Other Fulbright programs will continue to be supported for Indonesians, including scholarships for teachers to teach the Indonesian language at American universities, for students to pursue master’s and doctoral-level degrees in the US, for mid-career professionals to take up Hubert Humphrey Fellowships, and for post-doctoral Visiting Scholars to conduct research in various fields at top American universities and institutions.

The Fulbright Program is the US government’s premier academic exchange program and is active in 160 countries world-wide, managed in 49 of them by Fulbright Commissions.

In Indonesia the program started 70 years ago in 1952 and has helped more than 3,000 Indonesians and 1,500 Americans to study, teach, or do research in the others’ countries.

AMINEF, the American-Indonesian Exchange Foundation, as the Fulbright Commission in Indonesia, has managed the programs in Indonesia for the last 30 years.

American Fulbrighters come as US Student or US Scholar awardees to do dissertation research or to carry out independent or collaborative research projects, working closely through the National Research and Innovation Agency (Badan Riset dan Inovasi Nasional, or BRIN) and with Indonesian counterparts.

Alumni of the Indonesian Fulbright Program have a history of returning to their home country and contributing through their careers in various fields of academic study, arts, and sciences to building knowledge and promoting mutual understanding between the people of Indonesia and the US.

Prominent alumni have included Haji Agus Salim, Affandi, Harkristuti Harkrisnowo, Mochtar Kusuma-atmaja, Syafi’i Ahmad Ma’arif, Juwono Sudarsono, Melani Budianta, Putu Wijaya, Pratiwi Sudarmono, Ayu Kartika Dewi, and Anies Baswedan from Indonesia, and William Liddle, Danilyn Rutherford, Celia Lowe, Robert Hefner, Anne Rasmussen, Don Emmerson, Barbara Harvey, James Castle, Anna Tsing, and current AMINEF Executive Director Alan Feinstein, from the US, among many others.