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.