`Education bill needs review'

`Education bill needs review'

Sari P. Setiogi and Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) urged on
Tuesday the House of Representatives to review the education bill
due to its failure to protect human rights.

One human rights violation, Abdul Hakim said, is related to
the objective of national education, which emphasizes the
cultivation of pious students.

"The education objective doesn't conform to international
standards, such as developing respect for human rights, basic
freedoms and principles in the United Nations Charter, developing
respect for parents, cultural pluralism, languages and children,
developing mutual understanding, peace, tolerance and developing
respect for the environment." Abdul Hakim said in a press
statement released on Tuesday.

The education bill also reduces nondiscriminative principles
by stating that every citizen has the right to an excellent
education only, he said.

The bill also limits foreign citizens' right to get an
education here by requiring further government regulation to
implement Article 13 (3).

Abdul Hakim said that although Article 13 (1) ensured students
the right to religious instruction, the bill must not oblige
students to attend religious lessons that are not on their or
their parents' faith.

The article must not burden schools with obligations beyond
their authority either, for example by requiring schools to
provide religious teachers of the same religion as their
students, Abdul Hakim said.

He said the bill could not restrict religious instruction to
only a few religions.

The bill recognizes only Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism,
Buddhism and Hinduism as official religions in schools.

"It means that the state does not recognize other existing
religions," he said, referring to a letter of protest from the
Confucianism High Council.

Confucianism or Khonghucu is not accommodated by the education
bill even though it was recently recognized as a religion by the
state.

"Overall, although the bill attempts to acknowledge several
international standards of human rights, the bill falls short of
protecting and fulfilling students' education rights," he said.

Many legislators claim the bill ensures human rights and
pluralism.

The bill also fails to ensure that higher education is
accessible to all and provided progressively free of charge,
Abdul Hakim said.

The bill also fails to promote and encourage international
cooperation on education, he said.

Meanwhile, a team of House Commission VI on education and
religious affairs failed on Tuesday to revise contentious issues
in the bill on the first day of its debate, which must be
completed by May 19.

The team has been assigned to reformulate nine articles that
factions in the commission failed to approve, including the goals
of the national education system and an article on religious
instruction.