Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB)

Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB), was founded on March 2, 1959. The present ITB main campus is the site of earlier engineering schools in Indonesia. Although these institutions of higher learning had their own individual characteristics and missions, they left influence on developments leading to the establishment of ITB. In 1920, Technische Hogeschool (TH) was established in Bandung, which for a short time, in the middle forties, became Kogyo Daigaku. Not long after the birth of the Republic of Indonesia in 1945, the campus housed the Technical Faculty (including a Fine Arts Department) of Universitas Indonesia, with the head office in Jakarta. In the early fifties, a. Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, also part of Universitas Indonesia, was established on the campus. In 1959, the present lnstitut Teknologi Bandung was founded by the Indonesian government as an institution of higher learning of science, technology, and fine arts, with a mission of education, research, and service to the community.Government Decree No. 155/2000 pertaining to The Decision on ITB as Legal Enterprise (Badan Hukum) has opened a new path for ITB to become autonomous. The status of autonomy implies a freedom for the institution to manage its own bussiness in an effective and efficient way, and to be fully responsible for the planning and implementation of all program and activity, and the quality control for the attainment of its institutional objective. The institution has also freedom in deciding their measures and taking calculated risks in facing tight competition and intense pressures.Bandung, with a population of approximately one and a half million, lies in the mountainous area of West Java, at an altitude of 770 meters. The ITB main campus, to the north of the town centre, and its other campuses, cover a total area of 770,000 square meters.