Building Systemic Safe Spaces in Education
As each new school year begins, the school environment buzzes with activity, particularly due to the Friendly School Environment Introduction Period (MPLS) programme, which features diverse characteristics across different regions. During such times, the dynamics of educational issues and problems flood the public sphere, from social media posts of children in new uniforms to the mixed expressions of parents enrolling their children in school for the first time. Beyond these temporary MPLS-related moments, social phenomena colouring the education programme include the condition of school facilities and infrastructure, and the declining interest among parents in enrolling their children in state schools, especially primary schools (SD), resulting in increasing difficulty in attracting new students and even empty classrooms in some areas.
It is worth examining the systemic circle that must be addressed to support and improve the quality of our education, starting from the smallest unit in our social system: the family. Without a transformation in relational patterns and the division of roles within the family, various educational reforms at the school level risk only touching institutional aspects without changing the parenting culture that forms the primary foundation of a child’s character development.
Generally, we need to view the problems of education as a systemic whole. The awareness to read our social problems, especially in education, systemically can reveal and address macro and crucial factors, such as government policy, involved stakeholders, facilities and infrastructure, supporting media and technology systems, down to contextual micro-elementary problems, including the minimal role of fathers. This leads us to question why most children arrive with their mothers, while fathers are nearly invisible. We must realise this is not a question of who has more free time or who is closer to the child. It is a question about how our social system operates, from parenting culture and the world of work to general economic conditions, including family resilience and security.
This situation shows that a father’s participation in a child’s education is not merely a matter of individual choice, but a product of social and cultural structures continuously reproduced through parenting patterns, labour policies, and societal expectations regarding the roles of men and women in the family. Therefore, efforts to build a higher quality education cannot solely focus on curriculum reform or school governance, but must also be accompanied by a cultural transformation that encourages a more equal sharing of parenting responsibilities between fathers and mothers as the primary foundation of a child’s educational ecosystem. The first day of school is not just an administrative routine; it is a social event marking an important transition in a child’s life. From a classical sociological perspective, ethnographer Arnold van Gennep described this phase as a rite of passage (1909), a process of moving towards a new social status. When a child enters the school gates for the first time in a new academic year, they are entering a different social world with new rules, relationships, and identities. Therefore, the presence of parents at that moment carries a symbolic meaning that goes far beyond simply dropping the child off.
Recent research on the importance of a father’s presence in a child’s educational process is increasingly extensive, even examining the extreme phenomena of fatherlessness and father hunger, where a child grows up without the presence or involvement of a father figure. This situation does not necessarily mean the father has died or left the family, but can also occur when a father is physically present at home yet emotionally absent, with minimal communication and no involvement in the parenting process. Many studies view this condition as potentially reducing a child’s sense of security, self-confidence, and attachment to the family and school environment, ultimately affecting their social and emotional development and educational attainment. Among these works, two systematic review articles by Wong, O., et al. (2024) in Father Involvement in Centre-Based Early Childhood Programs and Yanjie, H., Ravindran, L., & Limei, L. (2025) with The Relationship Between Father Involvement and Children’s Academic Achievement show that father involvement is an increasingly noted factor in educational studies. This research confirms that the success of father involvement in the educational environment depends heavily on two things: a school culture that actively invites fathers and relationships that respect them as educational partners. In other words, low father participation is not solely a matter of individual choice, but is also influenced by social structures and a school culture that has historically been more accustomed to interacting with mothers.
Amidst the lively MPLS momentum launched collaboratively by the Minister of Primary and Secondary Education, Abdul Mu’ti, on 13 July 2026, I see several projections that can be systematically developed into a participatory social process within the world of education. This is because a safe and comfortable space demands the active and even innovative involvement of all parties.