Don't compromise Indonesian education

Don't compromise Indonesian education

Rachel Davies
Education Consultant
Sydney, Australia

The problems facing Indonesian education are very obviously of
a huge variety. Most observers would be quick to simply consider
the enormous scale of the task and recognize the terrible
difficulties that must surely be encountered in bringing
sufficient funds to support education for more than seventy
million children across this archipelago nation. With Indonesia's
next steps in democracy in the form of April's election there
seems no great hope of education gaining much in terms of
government promises of greater investments.

Investment and funding may be one thing; and a very important
thing at that but mission and vision for education are critical
factors too and it seems that these key elements and guiding
forces for any nation's system of education are not yet
sufficiently and appropriately designed for Indonesian education.

Certainly there are some good steps in the right direction
such as the development of a schools curriculum significantly
oriented towards the achievement of competencies. But a step such
as this will take a long time to be effective, as the powers of
teachers to bring such a curriculum to the classroom will need to
be developed over a long term.

Long-term planning is required. Short term remedies cannot be
applied to get Indonesian education into a more up-to-date form
and so be more useful to Indonesian children and students looking
to progress either to university or be competitive in the global
economy. A new culture of education and educators has to be
pursued that will breathe new life into the nation's school kids
and school leavers too.

But this "new culture" should come from within; that's to say
it is most appropriate and right that Indonesian educators and
the Indonesian people breathe new life into their schools and so
do not allow education here to be compromised.

Currently it is possible to observe ways in which Indonesian
education is being compromised. It is possible to observe schools
that are only occasionally are supportive of the development of
better education for Indonesian school kids. It is possible to
observe that there are schools being run as profit-making
businesses.

Here are a couple of examples to illustrate the point: Certain
schools will claim that they teach exclusively in English. Now
immediately you can question the validity of such an approach
given that Indonesia is not an English speaking country and so
inevitably students attending a school like this will be studying
in a foreign language. Of course, this means that Indonesia is
immediately being compromised.

A school that claims that it is teaching exclusively in a
foreign language is directly throwing out one of the fundamental
underpinnings of any culture or nation -- its language. Bahasa
Indonesia is inexorably linked to what it means to be an
Indonesian but certain schools are happy to market themselves on
their use of English and a simultaneous dismissal of Bahasa
Indonesian even for conversational purposes outside of classroom
time.

But then again, it is probably right to say that they "market"
themselves on using English because the reality may well be
different. Any school that claims that it uses English
exclusively will either have to have a very tough entrance test
that means that they only accept kids that already can speak
English or they will be going ahead with teaching and instruction
in a foreign language and fail to educate their students because
the students will probably not be sufficiently well able to learn
with linguistic deficiencies.

Basically schools like this will either be eliminating most
Indonesians from joining them or if they do permit them to enter
they will be facing a very difficult mountain to climb and have
to have a good remedial English program.

Other schools too market themselves on the basis that they
have expatriate native speakers of English as teachers on their
staff. Here again the English language is being used to support
schools as business ventures. Any claims of having expatriate
native speakers of English do not automatically mean that these
people are any better or more capable educationally than local
Indonesian teachers.

In fact, quite often it is possible to see expatriate teachers
that bring old-fashioned and out-of-date and out-of-touch
teaching methods and materials that do nothing to benefit the
improvement of education in Indonesia.

This kind of situation is made even more problematical if you
consider the additional unfortunate negative influence expatriate
teachers can have. At least one school in Jakarta having
expatriate teachers had a very disturbing influence. Local
Indonesian teachers claim that the kids that they have to teach
did not treat them with respect and they favored being with the
expatriate teachers.

One teacher even said to me that she felt like the school kids
treated her like a second class citizen; like she was there not
as their teacher but as a servant or maid that they could boss
around.

There may be a certain amount of "professional jealousy" at
work in the minds of local teachers here but then again, when an
experienced teacher is partnered with a fresh graduate and that
fresh graduate acts and works with an air of superiority over the
more experienced teacher, it is clear that something altogether
inappropriate is being allowed to happen.

Obviously, these are not very favorable situations at all.
Teachers that have lost respect from their kids and/or feel
undervalued are likely to be teachers that are harboring
negativity and are likely to suffer from a lack of commitment to
the teaching that they have. Effectively, local teachers are
being left feeling dejected and disappointed about the teaching
experiences that they are getting in what should be leading
schools.

Development of schools should not come at a cost of dismaying
many good teachers. But this is a real danger. There seems to be
some kind of a continuing colonialism mentality. Sometimes people
simply believe too easily in "Western" education and think that
it is going to be better or more advanced than what is on offer
in Indonesia. This is simply not always true!

There are many highly capable and progressive education people
in Indonesia that have much to offer. They may have learnt from
"Western" ways but that has simply been their starting point and
from that they have been able to develop their own ideas and
progressive thinking for the real development of education in
Indonesia.

Sure, the task is a difficult and uphill one but I believe
Indonesian people are flexible and can adapt to find a way
forward. But the way forward should be led by Indonesians. It
should always be possible to consult and gather ideas from
elsewhere but there is no reason at all why good Indonesian
educators cannot lead the way. Their values, ideas and ideals
should not be compromised to false development. Real development
will come from within rather than being borrowed, imposed or
copied from outside.