The Challenges and Opportunities in Developing Nuclear Engineering Education in Indonesia After Fukushima Accident

Indonesia plans to build the first nuclear power plant (NPP) to solve the country’s energy problems. It needs full skilled human resources in the field of nuclear technology. Department of Engineering Physics, Gadjah Mada University is the only university in Indonesia offering a nuclear engineering curriculum which is established since 1977. The main obstacle of nuclear engineering education development is the unclear government policy. The government postpones its plan several times since the first nuclear research reactor was established in Bandung (1972) due to the presence of anti-nuclear groups, especially after Fukushima accident. This paper would like to describe our experiences in order to response the challenge mentioned above. As an education institution, Gadjah Mada University has a mission to develop science and technology for leveraging the nation competitiveness. According to that goal, the nuclear engineering development has to be independent to the presence of NPP in Indonesia, since many NPP is establishing in the world. As addition, according to the Nuclear Energy Regulatory Agency (BAPETEN), there are 2,825 institutions, including medical institutions, which are currently utilizing radioactive materials in Indonesia. As addition, Indonesia now is playing important role in the radio-pharmacy production, particularly in Asia. So, there are several opportunities as basis for developing the new nuclear engineering curriculum. In the new nuclear engineering curriculum at Gadjah Mada University, student is offered two concentrations named Nuclear Energy System and Medical Physics Technology. The first one is oriented to support the nuclear reactor system development including G4 NPP, research reactor and radioisotopes production reactors. They study how to plan, to operate and to develop from cradle to grove of a nuclear reactor system that means from front-end to back-end. In the other hand, the second one is developed to graduate competence human resources who could apply their knowledge in medical field. They would be a partner of radio-oncologist in hospitals. Besides the hard skills, student’s character has to be educated in order to create their competitive excellences based on safety culture, global and national vision. We believe that the above mentioned hard and soft skills will assist student to survive in today’s global competition, especially in nuclear technology utilization.