Indonesian staff of 12 Polytechnics is going home satisfied after a 6-week course in Bioenergy production at Van Hall Larenstein Leeuwarden

05-11-2019

On 17 October we have said goodbye to the participants of the intensive course in Bioenergy production. This tailor-made course was delivered on request of the Indonesian Ministry of  Research, Technology and Higher Education (MORTHE), within the framework of the retooling program of the Polytechnics in Indonesia.

In the course, 16 members of staff of 12 Polytechnics from different islands of the Indonesian archipelago developed their competences as lecturers, not only in the field of bioenergy production but also in the field of competence-based-education.

Course content

In this course, the participants have looked at bio-energy production from and environmental, social and technical point of view. They have learned how to produce bio-gas and bio-fuel from biomass, both theoretical and practical. They have also explored the social aspects of bioenergy production: policies, different energy demands, and how to deal with these technologically. And of course also how to deal with the energy use and production from an economic point of view. This is called the Triple PPP-approach: looking at solutions from a social (people), environmental (planet) and an economic (prosperity) point of view and finding the most favorable combination and communicating this effectively.

Elements course

The course contained 4 elements:

  1. Enhancing the subject expertise in the field of biomass and bioenergy production.
  2. Educational theory and didactics relating to problem-, student and society-oriented education and problem based and competence-based learning.
  3. Translation and application of the new subject expertise and didactical concepts to the trainees’ own cultural, societal and organizational context. Trainees have translated this in curriculum elements of the courses they are responsible for.
  4. Building and operating a biogas reactor.

They went home with the design for a newly developed course in bioenergy production, they have produced a course guide for this new course in their own curriculum. They have learned how to build, operate and troubleshoot a biogas reactor and finally, they developed an implementation plan for the newly developed course.

The participants were very impressed with the infrastructure of the Water Application Centre and told us they really loved working there.

Follow up

With several of the participants, we hope to undertake follow up applied research activities in Indonesia as part of the Living Lab initiative VHL University of Applied Sciences (VHL) is executing there.

See the attached pictures for an impression of the course.