Do student strikes reflect a crisis in education ?

Do student strikes reflect a crisis in education ?

By Mochtar Buchori

JAKARTA (JP): Early one morning last week, my phone rang. "I
would like to ask your opinion on the student strikes in Jakarta,
sir," the caller said. "It seems to me that it is going to be an
epidemic. After students at one high school succeeded, through
striking, in having their principal, who they considered
authoritarian and corrupt, removed, other high schools followed
suit. If this method of dismissing unpopular principals and
teachers is going to become more and more common, don't you think
that a precarious situation is arising? Can such a practice be
justified?"

The act of forcing the removal of principals and teachers
through strikes is not critically dangerous, I told the caller,
but the prevalence of situations that lead to such practices is.
Student strikes definitely indicate an unhealthy situation in
schools. If such a situation persists it is bound to create
tension and erode the authority of schools, their principals and
perhaps even the authority of some of their teachers.

In such a situation, blaming the students solves nothing.
Student actions -- be they strikes or other disruptive acts --
are usually no more than attempts to end situations which they
consider unbearable. The blame must be directed at those who
ignore unhealthy situations while having the power to intervene.
If we sincerely want to remedy a problem, it is, in my opinion,
not the student strikes which should become the focus of our
attention but the conditions that lead to the strikes.

"Thus until you inform me of the conditions that have evoked
these strikes, " I told the young man, "I cannot give you my
opinion."

The young man is a reporter. He seemed to know much about the
strikes. He said that schools where students went on strike were
generally marked by the following institutional characteristics:
the principals and the majority of teachers were considered
authoritarian by most students; the schools charged fairly high
"obligatory contribution fees" on top of their formal tuition
fees; many cocurricular and extracurricular activities were
compulsory for all students forcing students to pay more fees;
students' parents tended to be indifferent toward school's
problems and the complaints of their children, thinking that they
had sent their children to a reputable school, which could not
possibly be besieged by unsolvable problems.

My experience with interviews like this is that my counterpart
will ask how a particular problem can be solved. This kind of
question always irritates me. I get the feeling I have been
triggered into talking about very trivial problems that can be
solved instantly. So I immediately told this young reporter that
this phenomenon of student strikes was a complex situation which
required elaborate deliberation.

I said that when there is a student strike there is no longer
trust and authority at the school. The students no longer trust
most of their teachers and the school as a whole no longer has
authority over its students. This vanishing trust cannot be
restored by authoritarian acts. Trust can only be restored
through efforts which clearly demonstrate the willingness of the
school to mend a deteriorating situation. Talks without sincerity
are worthless. And talks which merely flaunt official authority
are even worse in cases like this. These will not restore
students' trust or the school's authority in the slightest.

Collective efforts must be made to identify events, actions
and situations which have caused this loss of trust and
authority. Grievances about tuition fees may be one source, but
it has never been the only source of authority crises. I think
that in a really reputable school, grievances on school fees
never arise. Parents know in advance how much the school charges
for each of their children. But they are also informed clearly in
advance about the kind of educational services their children
will receive throughout the year.

Thus, if there is resentment at school fees, there must be
something wrong with the process. Either parents and students are
not clearly informed prior to enrollments on the total fees to be
paid, or the services that the students later received were
considered unequal to the high fees paid. Resentment like this
can only be overcome through open, honest and fair discussions to
root out lingering doubts, suspicions and misunderstanding on how
a school was run in the past and how it should be run in future.

Again, I would like to emphasize the importance of identifying
and discussing all possible causes of the existing crisis. Only
if all important causes have been identified and exhaustively
discussed will trust and authority be restored. If such
comprehensive and exhaustive discussions do not occur, every kind
of solution that ensues will be a pseudo-solution. If trust and
authority are not genuinely restored, no real education will
happen.

We should consider whether formal discussions on these issues
are preceded by preliminary meetings and encounters aimed at
preparing principals and teachers, students and parents for open
and honest talks. Without such preliminary meetings, discussions
among school authorities, parents and students often end in mere
formal agreements that do not bring about real and lasting
improvements in schools.

Is the phenomenon of student strikes a reflection of
deteriorating conditions in our schools and society, or are they
merely "a trend" among high school students, as some educational
authorities claim?

I really do not know. But whatever the answer, I still think
they are a worrying reflection of our schools today. Even if the
strikes are "merely a trend", they are still very worrying. It is
certainly a stupid trend that should never have happened. Our
teachers must be clumsy and powerless, which I do not believe, to
let the students adopt this trend.

The writer is an observer of social and cultural affairs.