It is indeed a sad moment for us. An Education institution where pupils learn from their masters has been tainted with blood. In United States, we have another school rampage that resulted 31 people dead and dozens injured. Meanwhile in Indonesia, a government-sponsored School caused a furore by covering up a student’s death.
United States with its gun ownership law is not foreign to school shooting. The Columbine incident, the more recent shooting at Amish elementary school and the latest shooting at Virginia Tech. Hopefully US will introduce a better gun-law to protect its citizens.
Meanwhile in Indonesia, many bloggers are expressing their anger and emotion with the latest killing from Institute of Public Administration(IPDN). The government-sponsored school has been known for its semi-military education style, and its students who are killed by their classmates/seniors. An online petition to close down the school has been created.
Hardono’s take
US Federal/State Government should put a metal detector in every school in United States. They could change the budget, instead of allocating so much money for Iraq, the money could be used to fortify every school in US. If the shootings are moved from schools to malls, the malls should also be fortified with metal detectors. If the same thing happened to the beaches, the beaches should also be fortified with metal detectors. Hmm.. shouldn’t they do a simpler approach by making the public access to firearms difficult/near to impossible?
STPDN should be closed and rent the building to other school such as UI/Binus/IPB, this way we won’t waste the investments that government has made in IPDN. And I believe the Indonesian government should hire more professionals with management education background. This way, we will have a government with a better management qualities, and with more resistance to corruption.
And lastly, my thoughts and prayers are for families of the victims. I pray for your strength and your well-being, bracing through this remorseful moment. For the rest of us, I hope we could do something to make this world a better place to life.
Notable bloggers with their opinion on IPDN Scandal:
List of management school in the region (replacements for IPDN?):
- Singapore Management University
- Institut Pengembangan Manajemen Indonesia
- Magister Management – Univ. Gadjah Mada
- The Complete List
The online petition to close down IPDN:
Reading on School Shootings in US:
About Hardono
It has been confirmed that one of the victims in Virginia was a student from Indonesia. The Indonesian Ambassador in Washington DC had talked to his parent on Tuesday (April 17, 2007) evening. My deep sympathy to the TobingPartahi Lombantoruan’s Family *).
*)Change was requested by commentator
News about the slain Indonesian student, taken trom the Jakarta Post:
Dead Indonesian student in U.S. massacre identified
JAKARTA (JP): One Indonesian student at the Virginia Tech University, the U.S., who was among the dead victims when another student fired gun to the crowd in the campus Monday morning (Monday evening at Jakarta time) was identified as Partahi Mamora Halomoan Lumban Toruan, Metro TV station reported on Tuesday.
Partahi was a civil engineering student in the university’s doctoral program, Metro TV said.
The massacre kills 33 students in the university.
The perpetrator was identified as Cho Seung-Hui, a-23-year-old student who arrived in the U.S. as a boy from South Korea in 1992.(***)
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailgeneral.asp?fileid=20070418011500&irec=8