Indonesian Education in the Red Zone
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”(Nelson Mandela)
Like our body, in order to withstand illnesses, its immunity must be strengthened through—among others—vaccination. In sociological perspective there are three major social problems which have huge negative impacts, namely (i) poverty; (ii) lack of knowledge; and (iii) underdevelopment of civilization. The big question is how to boost the social immune system in order to avoid those three problems? The answer is education. Therefore, education can be the social vaccine.
Besides social vaccine, education also works as social elevator to improve our social status. We need both the social vaccine and elevator so that we can avoid the three social problems and at the same time improve our social status. Education is the answer to the challenges, problems, and wishes of the whole society in preparing a better generation for the future. Education services must be able to reach all levels of society in accordance with the principal of Education for All without discriminating one’s origin, social status, economy and geography.
Homework for Indonesian Education
The celebration of the National Education Day (Hari Pendidikan Nasional) which falls on May 2, 2013 today seems as lethargic as the today’s education in Indonesia. Such lethargy is caused by government’s failure in developing our national education. The government has not so far been able to materialize our national education goal namely education that can produce learners with noble morals and manners.
A number of aspects can be used as benchmarks for the government’s failure assessment, such as chaotic management of the National Examination (Ujian Nasional, commonly known as ‘UN’) which happens almost every year. From the implementation of the National Examination, it has not succeeded in producing quality education. On the contrary, it has triggered cheating behaviors among students, schools and even the education managers themselves. The implementation of the UN 2013 this year is even worse. Also the issue on the immature curricula development prepared by the government up to now has generated restlessness among the stakeholders in education such as teachers and the schools. Issues on misbehavior cases among students such as interschool brawls, drugs, pornography and free sex, also immoral misconducts committed by individual teachers have fulfill the bleak list of problems in our education.
On the other hand, lack of qualified teachers has also become classic problem which is urgent to be fulfilled. According to the data from the Ministry of Education, in 2012 there were only 2,607,311 teachers spread all across the country. From that number, 195,387 of them are entering retirement during 2009 – 2014. This problem has been worsened by teacher availability problems in remote areas such as the lack of teachers, unequal distribution, substandard quality, incompetency, and mismatch between education qualification and the area of expertise.
Those aforementioned are the problems now hampering Indonesian education nowadays. Like an iceberg, there are plenty of issues, invisible on the surface, that actually threaten the quality of the education. There must be a serious attention and real efforts from the government with supports from other stakeholders (NGOs, private sector, and society) to handle those various problems if we do not want our nation to collapse in the world map of human civilization.
Education is The Country’s Responsibility
According to English philosopher John Stuart Mill, education covers all activities whose goal is to approach oneself to the level of perfection, either done by oneself or other parties. Education is essentially maturation and ripening process of one’s quality of life. A person who has undergone such process is expected to understand the essential meaning of life. Therefore, education that is implemented always stresses on the maturation process of one’s way of thinking, morals, heart and belief in God.
There are many explanations about the importance of education for either individual or society. Indonesia as one of developing countries, also see the importance of education in this country. In Article 31 paragraph (4) of the amendment of UUD 1945 (1945 Constitution) it is stated, “The state shall prioritize the budget for education to a minimum of 20% of the State Budget and of the Regional Budgets to fulfill the needs of implementation of national education.”
With such percentage, the government should have been able to develop quality education facilities for the people and improve the teachers’ performance, which at the end of the day all will come to the better quality graduates. Everybody would agree that the development of a country depends on the human resources quality in that country. How can we create good human resources? The good education system is the key. Apart from that, all elements of the society must also have the same vision that only through education can the future of our nation be getting better.
Our national independence which reach the age of 68 should have already presented the face of dignified national education, as mandated by 1945 Constitution namely to educate the life of the people. “Happy National Education Day, May 2, 2013.” Let us hope that all of our efforts to advance our national education quality and that open access to education for all Indonesians come to reality. (Taken from various resources with the necessary modifications)
Author: Iwan Setiyoko, member of Network Education Watch (NEW) Indonesia
