University and community partnerships in South Sulawesi, Indonesia: Enhancing community capacity and promoting democratic governance

Abstract

South Sulawesi is a province in Indonesia where the majority of the population is Muslim, with many variant interpretations of Islam. Alauddin State Islamic University is not just a place for teaching and study but also plays a role in helping to unify the differences among these different Islamic groups. Its changing of status from institute to university in 2005, and later the support of the Canadian-assisted SILE Project beginning in 2010, have made this university an example of reform in the way it implements its functions. Since 2011, Alauddin State Islamic University has been developing a new approach in university-community outreach/engagement. What was formerly separated between teaching, research and community service is now linked under one institutional umbrella. The new university-community outreach approach has also adopted some new tools like Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) and Results Based Management (RBM). It seeks to promote democratic governance, gender equality and a sustainable environment. The university also works in partnership with civil society organisations (CSOs) in South Sulawesi, including Islamic-based organizsations, secular organisations and women’s organisations. The model for the partnership is a working group (abbreviated to pokja in Indonesian), which comprises lecturers from a faculty in the university and members of a CSO. We discuss the opportunities and challenges faced by these working groups. Opportunities include increased advantages from pooling their organisational capacities and experience in working with communities. Sharing their networks and resources makes them stronger and makes their work more sustainable. The challenge lies in changing the mindset from a needs-based, project-oriented approach to an asset-based facilitative approach, comprehending the tools, managing time to work together and building effective teamwork. Keywords: university-community outreach, democratic governance, asset-based community development, opportunities and challenges

Promoting University–Community Alliances in the Experiential Learning Activities of Agricultural Extension Postgraduate Students at the University of Fort Hare, South Africa

“…Such alliance is therefore a co-dependent relationship [11] that facilitates resource sharing and the pooling of diverse knowledge and skill sets, with a collective goal of addressing critical issues [12]. The higher educational system is mainly tasked with "teaching, research, and community service/engagement" [13] (p. 164). Porter [3] observed that the service/engagement component is the most obscure of the three functions, despite being a key element in educational planning.…”

“…They play a key role in university curriculum development [4] and are therefore central in the effort to align Agricultural Education and Training (AET) curricula with the current issues facing South Africa's agricultural sector. Real situational experiences from such alliances can become a resource that influences teaching and learning [13]. Porter [3] noted some potential benefits for each engaging party: (a) it is a platform for community members to benefit from the technical assistance, time, energy, resources, and know-how of the university student and staff; (b) universities are able to deliver on their mandate to engage in community development; (c) students are able to get involved in applied learning.…”

Community Service Learning among Health Sciences and Medical Undergraduates at a Malaysian setting: Providers′ and Recipients′ Portraits

“…This practice does not contribute much to empowering the community and thus, being a successful platform for a service-learning environment. In an Asian study, it was reported that universitycommunity engagement programme failed to fulfill many of the CSL principles including community empowerment (Mastuti et al, 2014).…”

“…As a result, meaningful collaborative partnership and positive social change in promoting social equity among communities may be possible through CSL (Ochocka & Janzen, 2014). Approaching the local community, interacting with them, helping to increase their competency based on the community's strengths, readiness of each counterparts (university and community) to manage time and work both in program planning and implementation and to change the mindset of all the parties involved are some of the challenges highlighted in implementing CSL (Mastuti et al 2014).…”

“…Reciprocal learning during CSL has been reported in similar studies (Beck andBarnes 2007, Miron andMoely 2006). The integration of the activities of teaching, research and community service or engagement, undoubtedly takes considerable time and needs frequent reinforcement and is one of the challenges of CSL (Mastuti et al, 2014).…”