Education and nation's identity

An article by a foreign contributor published in The Jakarta Post on Nov. 15, 2003, expressed deep concern over the present state of education in Jakarta and in Indonesia in general. It is interesting because most Indonesian educational experts have so far not considered this matter important.

The article, RI's schools should target higher standards, concluded with an alarming statement: "Education has a critical social role to play and if schools may be seen to undermine this social role by adopting foreign ways and means, then a genuinely regrettable condition may have been reached."

The contributor, Simon Marcus Gower, executive principal of High/Scope Indonesia in Jakarta, wondered why a number of schools in Jakarta regarded the school curricula of Singapore and Australia as more superior and appropriate than the national curriculum. It is obviously incorrect and narrow-minded to consider local schools only a "preparation" or "stepping-stone" for further studies in Singapore or Australia. This may be a negative impact of the strong perception of globalization that international "competitiveness" should be the main "goal" of education, so that our efforts to promote the quality of a typically Indonesian education are ignored for the sake of "international standards".

It should be deplored that such confusion has begun to prevail among some of our higher learning authorities, which can be noticed in their offers of "international classes" in English and study programs in cooperation with overseas colleges for double degrees. Program leaders feel proud of "international recognition" and are thinking of "competitiveness" that enables graduates to work everywhere in the world, rather than the capability of solving the nation's own problems. Consequently, emphasis goes to deductive-logical methods instead of inductive- empirical ones.

The Japanese are known to have achieved international superiority thanks to their educational system. I am afraid Indonesia may fail to achieve this due to its mistaken educational management, which overlooks the nation's identity. Globalization is apparently undermining national pride. Indonesian intellectuals should awake from their slumber!

MUBYARTO Yogyakarta