Sleman – UPN "Veteran" Yogyakarta established cooperation between the PDTT Village Ministry and Universities, at the Yogyakarta State University Auditorium (UNY), on June 27, 2020. The signing of this MoU is an extension of the cooperation in the previous year. This cooperation is a realization of an independent campus which is an instruction from the Ministry of Education and Culture, where the students study outside the campus for three semesters, one of which is studying in a village. The signing of this agreement was carried out with the five university chancellors in Yogyakarta, namely Universitas Pembangunan Nasional “Veteran” Yogyakarta, Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta State University, Nadhlatul Ulama University Yogyakarta, Sarjanawiyata Tamansiswa University Yogyakarta and Institute of Technology Yogyakarta.

The PDTT Village Minister, Drs. H. Abdul Halim Iskandar, M.Pd., said in his remarks that he wanted to intensify the synergy between the PDTT Village Ministry and the University with the Independent Campus project for Village. It is also known that there are still many things that must be addressed in the village development process, starting from the planning, construction, implementation and supervision of villages in Indonesia as many as 74,953 villages.

Drs. H. Abdul Halim Iskandar, M.Pd., added that the Village Fund Direct Cash Assistance (BLT) program made it easier to see the village conditions.  Based on this fact, the idea arises in the form of support from the Higher Education Institution, where when there is a regulation issued by the PDTT Ministry that comes into contact with the village, it really has a local wisdom because there are two interests that must be met in this case. The first interest is how the village has independence in managing its own village with the village fund supplements. Yet, on the other hand, it is realized that human resources in the village are still very varied with all the consequences. This is a challenge that is not easy and it can also be understood that many keys to the development in Indonesia come from villages.

"Therefore, the role of tertiary institutions in this case besides through the Thematic KKN program and the student activities in the village, there is a specific program of components of the academic community such as experts and lecturers from the tertiary institutions to go directly to the village and provide assistance to village. From both sides, it will be covered by the PDTT Ministry regulation that regulates the priority scale of the use of village funds in 2021 so that there is no doubt between villages and universities to develop the villages,” added the PDTT Village Minister. PR