Banten needs to educate itself

By Ridwan M. Sijabat

RANGKASBITUNG, Banten (JP): A daunting problem which must be immediately faced by the newly established province of Banten is developing the education sector.

Without it many realize that the province can never achieve its full potential.

Much of the onus remains on the inexperienced provincial administration, but some residents have also taken up the initiative.

Juaniardi, a Teacher Training Institute (IKIP) graduate, is one of the those who have tried to improve the quality of human resources in the least developed regencies in the province.

In 1998 he and three of his colleagues established a student training center Insan Mulia in his hometown Rangkasbitung.

"The first year, we had only ten students. Now we have 230 junior and senior high school students who take numerous courses in the training center," he told The Jakarta Post here recently.

He cited that with the 15 teachers and staff in the institute they have helped some 60 percent of its graduates on to "prestigious" universities and institutes.

Juniardi said the center was set up due to a common concern over prevalent illiteracy and the low quality of education in the Lebak regency.

He claims that of the 1.02 million people in Lebak, 40 percent, or 400,000, are illiterate because they have never gone to school and of the remaining 600,000, 98 percent are only elementary school graduates or high school graduates while two percent are university or academy graduates.

He lamented the state of formal education where thousands of elementary school students in remote villages attend classes sitting on mats as their classrooms have not been repaired following the recent earthquake that jolted the regency.

Community leaders also expressed similar concern over the poor quality of human resources and the means available to improve them.

Syech Rafiuddin, a director of an Islamic boarding school near the town, called on the local administration to launch a campaign to motivate the habit of reading among the people.

He said that the regency would continue to lag behind other regencies and the people would remain poor if things did not change.

"The majority of local people can pronounce the entire verses of the Koran, but they can't read the Latin alphabet while all information sources are written down in Latin alphabet text-books and newspapers," he said.

Tubagus Hasan, an influential figure in Serang, called on the provincial administration to give high priority to the matter.

"No party, including the West Java provincial administration, have given serious attention to the shortage of education institutions, the low quality of education and of human resources in the region," he said.

Prior to becoming a province itself, Banten was previously under the administrative control of West Java.

Tubagus said the lack of attention to human resources in the past by the West Java provincial administration was due to the lack of awareness of many officials who have little insight into the problems of the area.

"Almost all officials in strategic positions in the administration, including regents, deputy regents and regency secretaries were appointed from the provincial capital (of Bandung)," he said.

He added that investors coming into the province have also failed to participate significantly in helping improve the quality of human resources.

"The provincial administration should be encouraged to give incentives for investors to invest in the province, but they must be obliged to participate in the development of local communities, especially in the education sector," he said.

Kiras S., a local education observer, called on giant companies in the province to provide scholarships for talented students to study overseas.

"Russia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore have all succeeded in developing their nations after sending their talented youths to study in Britain and the United States," he said.

He remarked that it was an irony that Malaysia sent its students to study in Indonesia in the 1950s and 1960s but now, hundreds of Indonesians are studying in that country.

Kiras also called on the provincial administration to study the possibility of establishing a state university in the province as other provinces had their own state university.

"The Tirtayasa University in Cilegon could be developed into a state university with financial support from the local budgets of the four regencies and two mayoralties," he said.