UPH Celebrated the National Education Day by Emphasizing the Importance of Holistic Education for Character Rejuvenation

The Rector underlined the definition of ?education? that was stated previously, which referred to the three, relatable main points. First of them is parents or family. This is the first educational institution for children. Therefore, parents had to provide their children with a good character building. The second point is school or formal educational institution. In order to face the upcoming ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), the educational institution must provide their students with a competitive ability because truthfully everyone was created by God with great potentials. Because of that, the holistic which UPH provided, includes a deep observation for any potential that God has given to the students. Such an attempt was supported by the Faculty of Liberal Arts, which equips UPH students with the foundational knowledge, life skills, and soft skills, as well as moral values, which are very significant for students, once they enter the professional world and become the member of the society. But, these three areas could not be taught neutrally, it has to be taught from a certain perspective. Because of that, according to the vision and mission of UPH, ?True Knowledge, Faith in Christ, and Godly Character?, all the knowledge, skills and values would be taught from a Christian perspective. In which, during the learning process, UPH students will be equipped with critical thinking, creative innovation, and character building aspects. Thus, UPH graduates could be competitive individuals, both inside and outside the nation. The third point is cooperation with partners of the same vision and mission. As an attempt to maintain holistic and transformative Christian education, UPH partnered with fellow universities with the same vision, such as Biola University, Corban University from the United States and other Christian Universities from outside Indonesia.

Still within the same topic, UPH announced the International Christian Higher Education Conference (ICHEC), which will be held on the 15-17 June 2016, at the UPH Campus, Karawaci, Tangerang. This conference was an initiative from UPH, in order to become a Christian education institution who could completely understand the aspects of Christian education. The ICHEC was first held on November 2013, with partnering University, Biola University and Corban University from the United States, who had been running the holistic Christian education. This second ICHEC, had ?Finding Our Place in the Biblical Story? as a topic, which will talk about how we should find our places within the great biblical stories. In this conference, there will be several key speakers, who are also Christian education experts from various academic backgrounds and places, to tell us about their thoughts about the aspects of the Christian education as well as qualified information from researchers and writing publicized on the International journals.

Another topic that will also be discussed is cinematography or movie production. Biola University will invite two cinematography experts as the speakers for this conference. One of them is the professor who will talk about how to find God, within secular movies.  Examples will be taken from an analysis of secular movies, to find is Christian principles and values.

Another aspect from the photography cinematography will also talk about how to use art in producing movies. Because originally, God created all humans with creativity, just like how God is a creative God. Because of that, we also have to express our self in art. These interesting topics will be explained more thoroughly on the conference.

This conference will present speakers from various Christian academicians from many universities, both inside and outside of Indonesia. Participants of this seminar and the parallel session are open to the public. Hopefully, this second ICHEC conference can contribute for Indonesia, in terms of knowledge about character building. Therefore, holistic, transformative and Christ-centered Christian education can be one of the educational pillars, which will strengthen the quality of education in Indonesia. (Rh)