Nothing has been done for education<\/p>\n
Fuad Abdul Hamied, Vice Rector for Cooperation Indonesian
\nUniversity of Education (UPI), Bandung, West Java<\/p>\n
The Indonesian public education system has long faced several
\ncomplicated challenges in nurturing reliable human resources
\nexpected to be capable of competition in the global arena.
\nEducation and the situation of human resources has worsened
\nbecause of our inability to handle the multidimensional crisis
\nsince 1997, plus the social and political chaos taking place in
\nevery corner of the country.<\/p>\n
The ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) which has come into effect,
\nfollowed by the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in less
\nthan a decade, are two momentous events that will require us to
\ndrastically improve our human resources to compete in the
\neconomic battlefield, in which our Asia-Pacific neighbors are
\nalready way ahead of us.<\/p>\n
The main issues of education will still be the recurring
\nproblems of quality, opportunity and efficiency. Other factors
\nsuch as curriculum design and educational resources and
\nfacilities are also a major problem. All of these problems
\ndesperately require a robust and effective national management
\nsystem regarding educational policies. That, of course requires
\npolitical will and sincere commitments by our leaders -- both
\nfeatures which are severely in shortage.<\/p>\n
One of the most easily identified indicators is the quality
\nand competitiveness of human resources.<\/p>\n
The World Competitiveness Yearbook placed Indonesia's
\ncompetitiveness rank at 39 in the year 1997, but it fell all the
\nway to the bottom in 1999 to rank 46 among 47 countries on the
\nlist and to rank the last among 49 countries in 2001. In 2002,
\nthe rank slightly rose to 47 among 49 countries.<\/p>\n
A report on human resources, industry and science and
\ntechnology conducted by the Institute for Management Development
\n(IMD, 1999) indicated that Indonesia ranked 44th among 46 nations
\nin the provision of engineers, and ranked last in technology
\ncooperation among businesses and research cooperation between
\nindustry and higher education institutions.<\/p>\n
Likewise, based on the United Nations human resource
\ndevelopment index (UNDP, 1999), Indonesia ranked a shocking 105th
\namong 108 countries. In short, our human resources are still far
\nfrom an acceptable level if we intend to compete at all with
\nother countries.<\/p>\n
One of the more disheartening impacts of the crises on
\neducation is the inability of millions of parents to pay for
\ntheir children's public education -- which can be very expensive
\nfor low-income families, given the many fees. In contrast there
\nis a small percentage of wealthy elite parents who pay millions
\nof rupiah a semester for private schools with international
\nstandards.<\/p>\n
But for the poor, the public school fees have caused a high
\nincrease in the dropout rate, thwarting the nine-year compulsory
\nbasic education scheme. Many of the dropouts have not reached
\nemployment age and thus are forced to work with low skills. There
\nare over 1.5 million workers with only an elementary education,
\n5.6 million elementary school dropouts, and 8.2 million junior
\nhigh dropouts currently at work in the country.<\/p>\n
Despite educational participation rates at the elementary and
\njunior high levels were quite promising in 1997 (above 90 percent
\nand 50 percent respectively), during the economic crisis the
\ndropout rate from elementary school increased by 2.5 percent
\n(about one million) every year since.<\/p>\n
Elementary school-leavers continuing on to junior high
\nfluctuated in the last 10 years, with the lowest point at 64
\npercent only in 1998. The dropout rates at the junior high school
\nlevel plummeted to its lowest point at 6.19 percent at junior
\nhigh schools and a higher rate of 8.5 percent at the madrasah
\ntsanawiyah (Islamic junior high schools).<\/p>\n
At the high school level, the dropout rate also worsened by
\n5.9 percent and an even worse rate of 18.5 percent for madrasah
\naliyah (Islamic high schools) in 1998. Access to higher education
\nis not promising either with a rough participation rate of less
\nthan 12 percent (totaling less than 25 million of the entire
\npopulation), whereas for comparison, one of our neighboring
\ncountries, Thailand, a decade ago, had a tertiary education
\nparticipation rate of more than 16 percent.<\/p>\n
Centralization has been blamed for the inability of each
\nregional government in handling educational problems in their
\nprovince, as all educational policies were handled at the
\nnational level, including the appropriation of the annual budget
\nfor education.<\/p>\n
A centralized management is believed to be effective only
\nregarding national policies, but such management is insensitive
\nto problems specific to each region. Grave concerns abound
\nregarding the improper understanding of the coverage and
\nprocedures of the regional autonomy law -- and who is ultimately
\nresponsible for education.<\/p>\n
When each region claims to have its own autonomy without
\nconsidering the significance of sharing, cooperation and
\ninterdependence among regions, education will fail to instill
\nnationalistic thinking and standardization; and hence
\nbenchmarking at the national level, moreover on the global stage,
\nwould become hard to advocate. Sagacious and better orchestrated
\nefforts at the national level are a logical necessity, or our
\neducation will continue to deteriorate into an abyss.<\/p>\n
In brief, Indonesian education in 2002 is in a dire state,
\neven it were not facing open competition with neighbors -- and
\nworsens when only handled with rhetoric. We are in an emergency
\nsituation and nothing concrete is being done, so, we need earnest
\ncommitment from people from all walks of life -- as education is
\ntoo significant to be left to educators alone.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/nothing-has-been-done-for-education-1447893297",
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"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
"sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
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