Education bill to foster nationalism, human values<\/p>\n
Edith Hartanto and Novan Iman Santosa, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta<\/p>\n
Many wonder why young Indonesians today fail to reach the level
\nof intellectual capacity that the youth had during the era of
\ntheir founding fathers.<\/p>\n
Sukarno, Hatta or Sjahrir were towering intellectuals in their
\nyoung age during the Dutch colonial period.<\/p>\n
Yet, since that time there has been a steady decline, which
\nbegs the question of what is the goal of education? Has the
\nongoing deliberation of the National Education System bill set
\nthe right guidelines for a better education system?<\/p>\n
The aim of education, according to the bill, is to \"develop
\nparticipants' potential to believe and be faithful to one God,
\nand to being healthy, competent, skilled, creative, independent,
\naesthetic, democratic, responsible people with civic and
\nnationalistic sensibilities.\"<\/p>\n
Noted educator Arief Rachman who helped draft the bill said
\nthe basic question underlying the bill was whether we want to
\nmeasure the brains or the person as a human being.<\/p>\n
\"What happened in the past few decades since the fall of
\nSukarno in 1966 is that the state overlooked the development of
\nthe spiritual aspect of education which has to go side by side
\nwith academics and the achievement of knowledge,\" he said.<\/p>\n
Mochtar Buchori, another prominent educator, said education
\nshould be directed at creating a generation capable of recreating
\na new generation by forging a sense of nationalism.<\/p>\n
\"Our founding fathers, such as Wahidin Sudirohusodo, are a
\nperfect example of how a generation could create a new
\ngeneration,\" he said, \"the year 1928 was the start of our
\nnationhood while our independence in 1945 was the start of our
\nnation state.\"<\/p>\n
Wahidin founded the Boedi Oetomo student movement in 1908
\nwhich led to a monumental historic achievement in the 1928 Youth
\nPledge in which youths from various ethnic groups pledged to set
\nup one country and one nation with one language: Indonesian.<\/p>\n
Following Sukarno's downfall, the country's orientation was
\nmore on economic growth, Arief said.<\/p>\n
\"Thus education has been perceived as a means to achieve
\nacademic goals based on knowledge and technology, casting aside
\nthe humanity aspect, the spiritual faculty and social aspects,\"
\nhe said.<\/p>\n
Values of nationalism, citizenship, humanity, aestheticism and
\ndemocracy so far have been conveyed in the form of text book
\npresentations rather than practical implementation.<\/p>\n
\"Students are ordered to memorize facts about certain values
\nfrom books and not by actually behaving and practicing those
\nthemselves. Under such a system, we have created some awkward
\ngenerations... who are not proud of their identity and who have
\nlost their sense on nationalism,\" Arief said.<\/p>\n
Mochtar, who is also a legislator from the Indonesian
\nDemocratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) faction, said the
\nsuccess of the Dutch education system in creating nationalists
\nwas \"an unintended result\" because the system allowed students to
\nexpand upon the facts and intellectually contemplate things in
\nthe context of history and other things.<\/p>\n
\"The Dutch colonial power never included nationalism for
\nIndonesian students in its curriculum but still our founding
\nfathers got some of it.<\/p>\n
\"They acquired it thanks to their solid education which
\nemphasized intellectual capacity and thought. And they learned
\nand understood foreign languages and history, not merely
\nmemorizing the chronology,\" he said.<\/p>\n
In the immediate past, the catch word for education was to
\ncreate a \"whole human being\".<\/p>\n
The phrase may have become a household name in Soeharto's
\nyears but not many people were sure about what it really meant.
\nThe result was a constant change in education policy each time a
\nnew minister took over.<\/p>\n
One of the most recent examples was the \"link and match\"
\npolicy in which universities were geared to answer the demand of
\nindustry.<\/p>\n
The only way to make a breakthrough in this false policy is to
\nset up a balanced education, Arief said.<\/p>\n
\"The current bill has attempted to offset this defect by
\ngiving more room for humanities and spiritual education apart
\nfrom the scientific knowledge,\" he said.<\/p>\n
Arief said that the younger generation are incomparable to
\nthat of Sukarno-Hatta era.<\/p>\n
\"Sukarno and Hatta were born in a different time of history
\nwith different challenges. They're men of history, and that era
\nwill never reoccur,\" Arief said.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/education-bill-to-foster-nationalism-human-values-1447893297",
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