Changing the system to teach democracy

By Mochtar Buchori

JAKARTA (JP): Politics and the economy constitute the core of our current reform movement. In addition talk has also been heard about the urgency of legal reform.

But until very recently no sign has been seen or heard of the need for reform in the field of education. It is only during these last two weeks that educationists, educators and education bureaucrats have begun to talk about educational reform.

From the discussions I have followed thus far, however, I have the impression that no agreement has been reached yet concerning what should constitute the essence of our educational reform, should this ever take place.

Educational reform can be discussed either in terms of the present reform movement or in terms of conditions within the educational system itself.

If the first approach is followed, then discussions about educational reform will proceed along the lines of how our education should be redesigned to make it a significant part of the present reform movement.

But if it is discussed in terms of the conditions within the educational system, then dialog concerning educational reform will have to be based primarily on the weaknesses of the system itself, using considerations about our present political and economic conditions only as auxiliary material.

In the history of education, reform is usually launched only after the education community realizes that the education system has not been functioning properly during a relatively extended period of time, and has caused conditions that trigger disappointment and criticism among the public.

Has our educational system performed so disappointingly? And since when has a significant portion of the public become dissatisfied with our schools?

I personally think that the performance of our educational system has become increasingly disappointing since 1972.

It is during this period that political forces within our society have systematically eroded the pedagogical foundations of our schools.

It is also during this period that our teachers have been condemned to be mere instruments of the bureaucracy and have been robbed of their privilege as educators who can perform their professional duty with sufficient pedagogical freedom.

The increasingly centralized and politicized management of our educational system has created many stigmatizing conditions and practices in our schools.

The academic quality of our graduates has continuously declined, methods of punishing students have been employed that violate pedagogical and ethical standards and teachers have been involved in coercing parents to purchase educational items that have been monopolized by politically well-connected groups.

Undesirable examples like these and aspirations expressed by the public concerning improvements that should be brought into our schools must be discussed openly and honestly. I think such discussions will help us identify educational issues that can then be considered as the essence of the educational reform we are anxious to carry out.

My own preference is to discuss educational reform in terms of our current reform movement. This preference is based on a very simple reasoning. I think that one of the basic aims of our current reform movement is to rehabilitate and cultivate democracy in our society. This is an objective that will take years to accomplish.

The magnitude of this task becomes visible only if we take into account the destruction of the infrastructure of democracy that was perpetrated by the Soeharto regime since 1971. Both the traditional and modern foundations of democracy that were carefully preserved or laid down by generations of political leaders prior to the Soeharto regime have been completely wiped out.

To climb up from our present ruinous condition and reach a sufficiently stable state of democracy will take, in my estimation, approximately 10 to 15 years. That is if during this period the work of restoring and cultivating democracy is sustained continuously.

There is no guarantee that democracy will bloom in the future. There is always the possibility that our society will slide back once again into feudalistic and authoritarian practices.

It is only when each successive generation reinforces and promotes the achievements of the previous generation in defending democracy that our society will move upward in the democratic scale.

It is precisely for this reason that the educational reform we intend to carry out must give sufficient attention to promoting the right kind of political education, that is education toward responsible citizenship.

This kind of political education will face two types of problems in our schools: technical problems and foundational problems.

The technical problems will include, among other things, the development of syllabi and teaching materials, developing teaching methodology particularly designed for this purpose and providing our teachers with the knowledge and skills needed to carry out this very important educational innovation.

Weighty as these technical problems may be, graver still is the foundational problem, that is the problem of creating a democratic climate that is currently absent in our schools and in our society in general.

In the end we must realize that it is just impossible to teach democracy in a repressive environment. In addition we must also realize that teachers ingrained with feudalistic and authoritarian inclinations cannot possibly teach democracy to the younger generation.

It is our task to create this democratic climate in our schools. We must help our teachers in this case, because in the end it is they who will have to carry out this almost improbable job.

As I see it, against the backdrop of the paternalistic tradition that still pervades our schools, the essence of the challenge is how to make our teachers adopt a democratic attitude in their daily performance without losing their authority.

We, together with our teachers, have to learn that teachers' authority does not depend upon our tradition of putting our teachers hierarchically above the students. Genuine authority of the teacher depends upon personal integrity, academic ability, and willingness to share knowledge and ignorance with the students.

These are characteristics that in my opinion will preserve the authority of our teachers no matter how egalitarian they position themselves vis-a-vis the students.

The writer is an observer of social and cultural affairs.