Honorable Norma Foley, Minister of Education
Minister's Office, Department of Education, Marlborough Street, Dublin 1, D01 RC96.
Honorable Minister,
I am writing to express my concern about the ICDL Foundation, which was founded on the initiative of several European countries including Ireland, and operated from its head office in Dublin, which then centralized its operations for Asia in Singapore under the name of ICDL ASIA, which did not pay back the $69000 USD deposit of the Yayasan Pendidikan Indonesia as its Representative in Indonesia.
For your information that we are the ECDL Foundation representative in Indonesia with allowed to cover Timor Leste for a years, started in 2003 when we firstly tried the ECDL concept at our boarding school, following by official appointment as Representative which our responsibilities are promoting ICDL concept, accrediting test and training center in all over Indonesia.
As representative, we have tried our best to promote the ICDL concept throughout Indonesia at our own expense , either through individual or joint approaches by organizing seminars and workshops, especially in the 6 provinces on the island of Java. This includes approaching the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Religion which is also the educational provider. Finally both Ministries recognized the ICDL concept and allowed us to accredits the educational Institutions from secondary to tertiary level of education in all over Indonesia.
For the activities above, such as school accreditation and training, we have paid the costs according to the previous agreement, then the total payment will be deducted by the ICDL Foundation.
Thus, for more than 12 years of representation until it was terminated unilaterally by ICDL, we have never had any difficulties from a financial perspective. On the contrary, the ICDL foundation has harmed us, by not returning our deposit of 69,000 USD.
By the official support of the Ministry of Education in 2006 we accredited private and Public Schools in Indonesia, following the official support of the Ministry of Religious Affairs we accredited more than 4000 schools under the ministry supervisor. Unfortunately the implementation of the above project was not as smooth as our expectation, and the ICDL Asia or ICDL foundation did not appreciate our efforts then finally they stopped the contract of representation for Yayasan Pendidikan Indonesia.
We responded by accepting the one sided decision above mentioned, however the ICDL foundation neglected all of our efforts and forgot the repayment of our balance of tests for the amount of $69.000 USD. We tried to communicate with the General Manager even with the CEO of the foundation but they did not respond positively, they did not positioned themselves as educated people, they even forgot that they are western well educated people. Especially Irish people with a lot of positive characters.
Based on the explanation above, allow me as Chairman of the Yayasan Pendidikan Indonesia to request wholeheartedly the Honorable Minister, to help us communicate with the ICDL foundation to consider the unresolved dispute by resolving the outstanding deposits that have not been paid more than 10 years ago for the amount of $69,000 USD , Which is now indispensable to finance our social activities as a special consultative status in ECOSOC United Nations.
For your information too, that 8 years ago we tried to communicate with ICDL foundation and several authorities of Ireland, but not settled yet, even the Irish Embassy in Jakarta at that time stated that this is a private case, although we signed the agreement in front of the Minister of public expenditure and reform Honorable Brandon Howlin. At that time we trusted that we were dealing with a trusted institution from Ireland.
Finally we thank you so much for your kind support. God bless Ireland and God bless you and yours
sincerely
Datuk Agung Sidayu
Chairman Yayasan Pendidikan Indonesia
cc.
- Honorable Mr Chan Chun Sing, Minister of Education Singapore.
- Honorable Patrick O,Donovan, Minister of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science
