Jakarta, Kartunet.com - The case of visually impaired prospective students being rejected by Sunan Gunung Djati State Islamic University (UIN) Bandung has only recently come to light. This case, which has reportedly been ongoing since 1999, was only revealed to the public at a human rights seminar in Bandung (04/08).
The rejection, based on the reasoning that visually impaired individuals lack the ability to become teachers, is a policy of the Faculty of Tarbiyah itself, not from the Rector of UIN Bandung. This policy has led to a decreasing number of visually impaired individuals interested in applying to the Faculty of Tarbiyah at UIN Bandung each year. “For this year, I have confirmed with UIN Bandung's Public Relations that no visually impaired individuals have registered for the Faculty of Tarbiyah, Islamic Religious Education (PAI) major,” explained Yayat Ruhiyat, Chairman of the Central Executive Board of the Indonesian Muslim Visually Impaired Association (ITMI), during a phone interview (07/08).
“This rejection case is not new; it has occurred repeatedly during every new student admission period, especially for those applying to the Faculty of Tarbiyah, PAI major,” continued Yayat, who also played a role in uncovering the case at last Thursday's human rights seminar. According to Yayat, there is an even more ironic phenomenon: when the Ministry of Religious Affairs opens civil servant vacancies for PAI graduates from Tarbiyah, UIN Bandung, on the contrary, tightly closes off that opportunity. Yayat stated that the ITMI Central Executive Board had already approached the Rectorate, and there were plans to open a special PAILB major for visually impaired students, but the results remain unclear, and UIN Bandung's promise to bring this case to a rectorate meeting was merely talk.
According to another source, the follow-up to this approach has not been optimal because the ITMI Central Executive Board has only held one meeting and has not taken further action, such as continuous protests to the UIN Bandung Rectorate. KOMNASHAM (National Commission on Human Rights) has also not yet summoned UIN Bandung, particularly the Faculty of Tarbiyah. Our source hopes that the new Dean of the Faculty of Tarbiyah at UIN Bandung, who is currently in a transitional period of changing positions, can be engaged in further discussions to resolve this issue.
For comparison, at UIN Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta, specifically in the Faculty of Tarbiyah and Teacher Training, visually impaired students have been admitted since 2007, and currently, six visually impaired individuals are students of Tarbiyah at UIN Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta. Furthermore, at other universities like Jakarta State University, one of its graduates even became an English teacher at SMP Diponegoro 1, Jakarta. (Laras)