Dilemma of elite education

Dilemma of elite education

By Jai Singh Yadav and John Phillips

YOGYAKARTA (JP): In Greek mythology, Pandora was the first
woman on the earth. She was given many gifts, such as beauty and
cunning, from the Gods, who also gave her a box, which she was
instructed not to open. However, her curiosity got the better of
her and finally she opened the box, only to let out all of the
evils which now plague humankind. The only thing she managed to
save in the box was "hope".

Indonesia can be compared to Pandora certainly with respect to
the many gifts bestowed on it, especially its overall beauty,
wealth, history and culture. However, Indonesia has also been
plagued in the past with such things as colonialism,
exploitation, and economic disparity.

Since its independence on Aug. 17, 1945 Indonesia has achieved
remarkable results in overcoming most of the problems associated
with these evils, but the most difficult problem to solve, that
of economic disparity, persists as it does in most of the rest of
the world.

One of the most widely used and perhaps best means of
narrowing this gap and promoting upward mobility in any society
is education. Primary and lower secondary education are seen by
development specialists as being the key to economic development
and prosperity of a family, society or a nation.

Governments sponsor education as a means of development, often
using an established national curriculum to "teach" values and
ideals that sustain a national identity and promote national
goals. In sponsoring education for nation building purposes,
governments tend to control and centralize decision making as
they nationalize curricula for efficiency, convenience, and
unanimity.

Unfortunately, this concentration of power and authority is
removed considerably from the local educational context in which
most schools operate, and the system may suffer from rigidity and
a lack of imagination in addressing either the individual or
local needs of the students.

Parents begin to look for alternatives to public education as
soon as their circumstances allow them to do so. Private
education then begins to grow in approximate accordance with the
growth in the economy, even spilling over the borders of that
country into countries with more "advanced" educational systems.

Wealthier parents "buy" the best education possible for their
children, if allowed to do so. Better education leads to better
opportunity, so the "privatization of education" inevitably leads
to a paradox, in which the great "equalizer", education, becomes
another way in which economic and social disparity are increased.

Indonesia has always had its "private" schools, in which some
things that are generally believed to improve education, such as
better teachers, better facilities and better materials, could be
purchased, although disparity in education was minimized by the
national curriculum, among other measures. Wealthy Indonesians
have also always had the option of sending their children
overseas to receive a so-called modern education.

However, allowing children to study overseas is also
disadvantageous to a country in at least two ways. First, it
takes a considerable sum of money out of the local economy and
puts it into the economy of another country, as is evidenced by
the fact that educating foreign students is big business in many
English speaking countries.

More importantly, educating children overseas ill prepares
them for their responsibilities as citizens of their native
countries, and creates additional attitudinal barriers between
the haves and the have-nots by indirectly encouraging elitist
attitudes. The elitism that accompanied colonialism is sometimes
sustained in former colonies by new "mandarins", who come from
the wealthy and privileged class.

It matters little in this sense that the foreign elite no
longer dominate a country if local ones continue to believe and
act in elitist ways. Such attitudes are not uncommon among those
who have enjoyed special privileges and status by virtue of their
wealth and influence. Educating children overseas fosters the
development of these attitudes to the extent that the children
may almost become foreigners in their own countries.

The solution to this paradox, which has already cropped up in
news items and articles over the years, lies in the recent
development of new "truly" elite schools in Indonesia,
particularly in the Jakarta region.

Commentators have suggested that the schools may serve as
"models" for curriculum development and decentralization of
education in Indonesia. Others criticize the amount of money
being poured into such schools, although most educators believe
that simply spending more money on facilities does not
necessarily improve educational quality.

These developments have come at a critical juncture in the
development of Indonesian education, in part because this is
really a very critical time for educational reform across the
globe.

All educational systems throughout the world are currently
being viewed as inadequate, with respect to the future needs of
"world citizens" (For this, one may see our article It's time to
become 'Global Villagers', published in The Jakarta Post, Jan.
27, 1994). Governments and educators everywhere are trying to
determine how to educate people to deal with the changes coming
in the next century. Many educational systems are locked into a
past which the future is rapidly making irrelevant.

At the same time, there is a real need for educational systems
to preserve that which binds people together into a common
purpose and understanding, while it provides the stability needed
if radical changes are going to be made without breaking that
society apart. In fact, no positive change is possible in
education without the preservation, through education, of eternal
truth and shared values, that bind the society together. This has
been one of the strengths of Indonesian education since
independence, and it has been achieved through strong leadership.

But, all school systems in the future must teach both the key
skills, concepts and traditional values that allow the society to
function properly, and assists students in adopting to new
conditions not previously envisioned when the older curriculum
were designed. In this sense, strong leadership is still
important, but it is also important that educational systems have
the ability to mold themselves to the local environment in which
they operate, since change in a society is neither uniform nor
entirely predictable.

The issues in the development of elite schools in Indonesia
have already begun to emerge. Some of these issues have been
identified above as issues involving combating elitism while
encouraging improvement in educational quality, decentralizing
decision making while retaining strong leadership, and curricular
reform while retaining key societal values needed for consensus
building.

If elite schools are to have a significant and positive effect
on Indonesian society, then they need to do more than simply
provide a better education for a few fortunate children.

These schools must seek ways of helping Indonesia solve the
21st century world educational riddle of how to educate people as
both citizens of a particular country and as citizens of the
world. They must be institutions that generate real curricular
reform, that is usable in average schools, as well as those with
riding stables, in the sense that the curriculum must be flexible
and functional enough to fit the local, national, and world
environments in which they operate.

Elite schools must be institutions that teach young people
about the basic worth and dignity of all people, regardless of
ethnicity, economic, religious, or social circumstances. They
must be institutions rooted in the communities in which they
exist as they welcome all levels of the society to participate in
the educational process.

In other words, they must strive to be inclusive and not
exclusive. They must be leading institutions, that finally assist
the government in reducing bureaucracy and decentralizing
decision making, even as the government works to build consensus
and to ensure equal opportunity, based on social justice, for all
children to pursue their basic educational rights as far as their
abilities will take them. Finally, these elite institutions must
represent the best hopes of mankind that were left in Pandora's
box, and not the evils that escaped.

Jai Singh Yadav is an educator from India and presently
visiting Associate Professor at the Faculty of Letters, Gadjah
Mada University, Yogyakarta. John Phillips is also an educator,
from the United States, and is presently attached to the English
teaching project at the School of Post Graduate Studies at the
same university.