Inspiring Scholarship Profile: A Long Road to Academic Achievements

Believing in ’Impossible Is Nothing’, Rizha Romanza began his enduring career as a scholarship hunter in 1999. After two-year ill-fated efforts in applying numerous scholarships, he successfully got a master degree scholarship from DEPAG RI and studied at Postgraduate Program, Islamic University of Malang.

During his thesis completion in 2003, Rizha gave his ‘nothing to lose’ shot to apply for ADS (Australian Development Scholarship). This time Allah SWT seemed to pity on him and granted his prayers. And Kun Fayakun, out of the blue! He got a ‘durian runtuh’ of ADS and pursued his second master degree at Monash University of Melbourne, Australia. He obtained M.Ed. in TESOL (English Language Teaching) from the university in 2005. Two years later he was awarded another AusAid scholarship and got a Certificate of I-CELT ESOL Course (an international English Language Teaching certificate) from Cambridge University, England. Alhamdulillah and Bravo Australia Indonesia Partnership!
Afterwards, Rizha was assigned to be a Master Teacher Trainer of the LAPIS ELTIS Projectfrom January 2008 up to June 2010. In the AusAid teacher training project, he was responsible for training Communicative English Language Teaching method to Islamic secondary school teachers and headmasters in remote areas of East Java, West Nusa Tenggara, and South Sulawesi. In collaboration with J.L. Clark, et al., he also contributed his writing work in Handbook of Communicative English Language Teaching Training which was published by the AusAid Project in 2008. Indeed, the project was challenging and rewarding as well. He did not only train the trainees, but also encouraged them to improve education qualities in remote areas which are often neglected by Indonesian government.

The latest breakthrough of Rizha’s career is being an awardee of AusAid ALA (Austalian Leadership Award) Scholarship 2010. He was granted the PhD scholarship after ‘a series of unfortunate events’ failing three ADS applications (including an interview in January 2010), Endeavour Scholarship, IIEF Fellowship, and Fulbright Scholarship (also failed the interview in July 2010). What a long scholarship journey! Now, he is doing PhD in Education program at Faculty of Education and Social Work, Sydney University, Australia (2011-2015, Insya Allah).

Rizha's research proposal is entitled Critical Thinking and Reading Skills Used by University Students in Indonesia. His study is mainly designed to find out to what extent Indonesian students use argumentative/critical thinking skills when revealing ideas in English and whether ways of using argumentative/critical thinking skills vary among them due to gender differences and different socio-cultural backgrounds. In Australia, he will be committed to actively involve in leadership trainings as required by the ALA Scholarship. He plans to extend his academic network and leadership qualities with other brilliant ALA awardees from Indonesia and other countries in Asia Pacific regions.

Having got PhD from Australia, Rizha believes he will be more able to develop Indonesian people’s critical thinking skills. His study will potentially contribute to higher education development in Indonesia, through the inclusion of critical thinking skills in the university curricula. Consequently, Indonesian students and lecturers will be better able to apply critical thinking skills and eventually, can exchange and evaluate argumentative ideas in English more effectively. The research topic also fits with his future community development in which he plans to include the notion of critical thinking skills in leadership trainings in one of the biggest Islamic organisations in Indonesia.

Last but not least, Rizha's hobbies are watching movies, travelling, and reading novels. He also likes meeting new people and of course, enjoying nice meals and drinks (steak, noodle, nasi pecel, fruity juice, STMJ, and Es Teler). Believe it or not, now he is weighed over 90 kg! Oops! Luckily, he is 180 cm tall and therefore, he isn’t a sort of pendekar (pendek kekar). No wonder his students at UM and Unisma call him Mr. Smack Down!

Finally, Rizha welcomes 'good guys' commenting on his posts and coming to his modest house in Malang, East Java.

Early Summer 2012, Stanmore, UNSW