Founded in 1964 as a centre for educational sciences and teacher training, Yogyakarta State University was made a state university by the Indonesian government in 1999 when it began to offer other courses outside of pedagogy.
Yogyakarta State University (YSU) now has seven faculties: science education; language and art; math and science; social sciences; engineering; sports sciences; and economics. Across the schools, the university offers 64 undergraduate programmes and 37 graduate study programmes.
There are 25,000 undergraduate and 3,405 graduate students at Yogyakarta State, with 1,000 faculty members on staff. Yogyakarta has a small number of international students but offers two types of scholarship for those coming from outside Indonesia.
Facilities at YSU’s campus include sports, healthcare and physical therapy centres, as well as accommodation, a theatre and a mosque. A traditional Javanese hall is available to be used for theatre and dance practices. The central library contains 260,000 books, with further libraries in each of the university’s faculties and also in the graduate school.
Yogyakarta is a city with a population of 420,000 on the Indonesian island of Java. There are several other public universities based there, including Indonesia’s largest, Gadjah Mada, and the Indonesian Institute of the Arts. The city is close to Borobudur, a 9th Century Buddhist temple, and Prambanan, a 9th Century Hindu temple, both of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
The university operates a Museum of Indonesian Education, which exhibits information about the history of pedagogy in the country. It is located in the centre of YSU’s campus.
