Liberal arts education is education to create graduates who are critical and agile. In addition, liberal arts free the mind from ignorance and also foster social responsibility. This is a way of learning not a field of science.
This was conveyed by the Professor of Taxation, Faculty of Administrative Sciences, University of Indonesia (FIA UI) Prof. Haula Rosdiana, M.Si. at the MPKT Public Lecture with the theme “Liberal Arts Curriculum to Prepare FIA Graduates with Broad and Adaptive Insights” which took place on Wednesday (15/6/2022) afternoon online through the zoom meeting platform.
Furthermore, Prof. Haula said that liberal arts education should teach something about everything and everything about something. Prof. Haula also explained that the root of knowledge in the three FIA UI undergraduate education programs is liberal arts.
“The FIA UI Scientific Pillar itself has referred to liberal arts which includes policies, governance, innovation, institutions, and culture. In the current era of the digital economy and the population structure that is dominated by the millennial generation, liberal arts is very important to face the challenges of the country’s existence,” he said.
According to Prof. Haula, there is one challenge to the existence of a country where most of the population are millennials who carry out activities in the digital world, such as the emergence of ethical issues where people will avoid taxes, so that the state does not have enough money to carry out state duties and does not achieve sustainability.
“Liberal arts is needed to design tax policies and tax systems where the framework is correct by conducting comparative studies and literature studies. One of the fundamentals of liberal arts is critical thinking because policy formulation is a once-in-a-lifetime process,” he said.
Furthermore, Prof. Haula explained about the millennial generation who use liberal arts in the agricultural revolution that has developed in the world and Indonesia and about waste water management as public goods or public services.
The event then continued with a question and answer session where several students were active to ask questions and one of them asked about the many problems in Indonesia, both from education, government, and social issues. One of them is about the phenomenon of corruption that creates public unwillingness in the millennial era to pay taxes related to the challenges of state existence previously described by Prof. Haula.
Prof. Haula replied by saying “When learning something, don’t be skeptical, but think critically and make sure you understand the philosophy first. Regarding the payment of taxes, it is needed as a driving force for government. So what needs to be criticized is not that, but the responsibility, namely the spending or its use. Because what is expected is when there are incentives and tax cash flows, so there will be reduced costs so that productivity will arise.”
For information, this public lecture was attended by MPKT class lecturers namely Wulandari Kartika Sari, S.Sos, MA as moderator, Wahyu Mahendra, M.Egov., Debie Puspasari, M.P.A., and Mohamad Luhur Hambali, M.Sc.
This public lecture began with a sharing session on the impressions of FIA UI students during the MPKT course for 1 semester, followed by an opening by the moderator, namely Wulandari Kartika Sari, S.Sos, MA as the Coordinator of the FIA UI Integrated Personality Development Course.
“This public lecture aims to support the achievement of MPKT public lectures where students have broader insights and have skills that are able to adapt to changing times that require FIA UI students to master soft and hard skills that will be useful in the future,” said Wulandari.
