Monday, April 07, 2008

Quality of a nation is determined among others by its culture. Culture is the concepts, ideas, thoughts, and beliefs held by a society for a long time so those things guide them in fulfilling their needs of life. Different concepts will lead to different behaviours. Wrong concepts will lead to wrong behaviours. Concept of Indonesia’s nationhood among others can be found in the constitution (Pancasila, 1945 Constitution, and so on) formulated by Indonesia’s founding fathers and developed by further generations. A culture is built mainly through education. Therefore, it is astonishing that in our (Indonesia’s) existing ministerial cabinet, culture is only “clung to” tourism so that culture is distorted into cultural things processed into tourist objects, while no one handles the spirit/essence. Actually, if not handled in one separate ministry, cultural affairs are more appropriate if handled under education ministry or education and cultural ministry (department), since it is education that builds the concept of Indonesian culture on generations from basic level to high level, while education for early age children (PAUD) and kindergarten can be handled over to local communities as a effort to form local cultural and local wisdom.

We often hear that members of our Indonesian society mock each other. Actually quality of people is determined by two things.

First, heredity. Indonesian people at present are direct descendants of 1945 Indonesian generation and are grandchildren of 1929, and are great grandchildren of 1912 generation. According to Ibn Khaldun, ups and downs of a nation are marked by emergence of three generations. First, Pioneering/battering generation, second, Developing generation, and, third, Enjoying generation. If in a country there are too much groups that are members of enjoying generation, which is generation that is only enjoying results of development without thinking how to develop, then it is one indicator that the nation will experience decline. The process of comes and goes of those generations happen within one century according to Ibn Khaldun. What makes us sad is that in our country, only a little bit more than 50 years of age, when few of pioneering generation are still alive, and the developing generation are still in the process of developing, a lot of members of enjoying generation are emerging, mostly even from educated groups. What’s wrong?

Second, education. It is education that can develop the spirit of Indonesia nation. Then, what are wrong in education for this young generation?
There are at least nine mistakes in our nation education so far (during New Order):

[a] Education management in the past overstressed cognitive aspects, ignoring other aspect so that it gives rise to a generation suffering split personality.

[b] Over-centralistic education that generated a generation of people that is only able to regard Jakarta (the capital) as the only hope without recognizing opportunities and big potentials in their own local areas.

[c] Education failed to build bases for developing a disciplined society

[d] Education failed to provide human resources that are ready to compete globally.

[e] Education management ignored democratization and human right. For example, during the new order, teachers/students ratio for schools under Education and Culture Ministry was 1: 14, while in madrasahs (under Ministry of Foreign Affairs) the ratio was only 1: 2000. Another example, educational budget of the government in State Senior High School was Rp 400, 000 while in Madrasah Aliyah was only Rp 4, 000/child/year.

[f] People empowerment in human resources and educational development affairs was subordinated through very centralistic uniformity. Therefore, people creativity in developing education wasn’t developing.

[g] Centralization of national education caused bluntness of local autonomous ideas.

[h] National education didn’t sufficiently respect cultural plurality so that it was in contradiction with the spirit of Bhinneka Tunggal Ika (unity in diversity).

[i] Enforced contents of nationalism and patriotism through P4 (Guidance for Comprehending and Practicing Pancasila) and PMP (Pancasila Moral Education) were too dry so that they are contra productive.

Those nine mistakes in national educational management have provided their following bitter fruits:

1. Young generation whose insight is low and who doesn’t have idealistic imagination ability.

2. Labor force that is unable to compete in global employment market.

3. Pokey, corrupt, and uncreative bureaucracy.

4. Economic players who are not ready act fairly

5. People who are easily act anarchically.

6. Heavily damaged natural resources (mainly forests)

7. Hypocrite intellectuals.

8. Foreign debts that is not repayable

9. Dominance of morally low leaders

10. Confused local leaders. Regent of minus areas still hope for funds coming from the central government, while regents of plus areas spend too much money for unimportant things

Education in the Reform Era
1. Reform era gives rise to cultural shock, like the feeling experienced by a person who has been imprisoned for so many years but then suddenly see the prison’s wall crumbles down. People experience a very different situation with almost unlimited freedom and openness. Because of this euphoric condition, people are not able to think clearly, demanding rights but ignoring duties, criticizing but not providing solutions.

2. Education society realizes that our human resources as products of our national educational are not able to compete globally so that we are only able to “export” servants, while at home our skilled workers have to compete with foreign skilled workers. The problem is that output of quality education can only be enjoyed after 20-25 years. Our uncompetitive human resources at present are products of education system implemented since 20-30 years ago. We have another problem in connection with radically changing education system: teacher we have now are products of inappropriate education system. In the concept used by IKIP, teachers are educational instruments, not figures that are able to transfer culture to their students. It is this vicious circle that is hard to break.

3. Unfortunately, our education experts have a tendency to mostly refer to textbooks and are lack in doing systemic tests in the field. SD (elementary schools) teachers are still merely “instructors”, not teachers who are followed like in our national education philosophy since a long time ago. Doctors and professors of education should still teach in elementary and junior high schools so that they are able to create culture-based education system, find realities that can be comprehended and formulated into theories, and then meet at bureaucracy level to manage education based on western theories. As long as education in elementary schools is only handled by “instructors”, it will be more difficult to develop the students at higher education strata.

4. Quality education is indeed expensive, but the increase of education budget in APBN (State Budget0 to 20% will not help a lot if National Education Ministry only focuses on certain educational projects, not educational development as a whole.

5. Private institutions have opportunity to create educational innovations without restricted by complex bureaucracy’s regulations, but it is very making us sad that there are a lot of private educational institutions that are merely business-oriented.

6. International schools are required as a response to globalization, but opening of international schools by foreign parties is very risky in terms of culture since they have different educational philosophies.

To accelerate and widen culture of learning national, educational budget should not only aim for formal schools but also informal and non-formal schools. At one point in the future, employment market will not merely consider certificates given by formal schools but also employees’ skills and these skills can be developed in informal and formal schools. Academic titles also won’t be relevant in a point in the future.