Education is not an experiment

By Nirwan Idrus

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia with over 220 million people and natural resources that can only make it to be a rich country, cannot however survive without having a Human Resources Master Plan. The technology revolution, the Internet inevitability and the arrival of knowledge economy exacerbate the situation in many countries, but more particularly in Indonesia.

World Bank figures several years ago showed that 70 percent of Indonesia's workforce have only primary school education or less. One cannot expect that figure to change dramatically in a very short time.

It is regrettable that the government does not appear to have done anything about this. To be sure there had been a number of sporadic and uncoordinated attempts by the government both during the New Order and post New Order eras, particularly in the education area. There was a curriculum modification in 1994 for example which received a lot of negative comments.

Recently, there was the decision to give autonomy to state universities by 2003, when such autonomy will be in place in four of them: the University of Indonesia, the Bogor Institute of Agriculture, the Bandung Institute of Technology and the Gadjah Mada University.

From various statements made by people in those four institutions, it seems that proper preparation for their autonomy had also not been done. A number of Education Acts (particularly No. 2 1989) and government regulations have been amended a little here and there, again appearing somewhat sporadic and uncoordinated.

Very recently, reports revealed the Director General for Primary and Secondary Education, Indra Djati Sidi, has had to contend with third or fourth class rate school buildings not far from Jakarta and the serious drawbacks of the national examinations.

He further stated that his department is working on amending the national examinations (Ebtanas) although it will take several years before the changes can be effective. Not knowing what amendments are going to be put in place, one cannot therefore comment on them.

However, what is clear is that this is another nibbling at the edges similar to the other changes we have seen to date. How could one teach in an accommodation with leaking roofs, inadequate educational supplies and also importantly, teachers whose low pay forces them to be split in their commitment to their main job?

Higher education infrastructure is not much better either. Neither are their curricula, discipline and practices. It is no secret for example, that many full time faculty staff spend more time outside their universities earning extra money than in their departments and universities doing what they are paid for. While these may seem unimportant or trivial in the eyes of many people, perhaps including officials in the Ministry of Education, the impacts of such practices on the country's human resources are many and profound.

Unarguably, the Indonesian workforce will continue to be below the minimum acceptable international standard, leaving the country open to potential exploitation by competitors when the ASEAN Free Trade Area is effective in 2003.

Symptoms abound pointing to the need for a fundamental revision in Indonesian education and human resources systems, but nobody seems to be bothered to do anything about it. If in the early 1970's Indonesian institutions were flooded by students from Malaysia, the 1990s and 2000s in fact saw a reversal.

Even regional Malaysian universities are active in Indonesia teaching Indonesians management and other disciplines. Malaysian professors and business people have also been recent guests of Indonesian banks and higher education institutions to teach us Islamic Finance and Islamic Banking, despite Indonesia's 200 million plus Muslims!

Something does not appear right, does it? This is only one small example. What about the many Indonesians studying in Malaysia, albeit at branches or campuses of foreign institutions? Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir's dream of making Malaysia the hub of education in Southeast Asia is alas coming true. Malaysian professors are also in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam helping with education there.

If the Ministry of National Education does not pull its socks up, who knows, we will have Malaysians telling us how to educate Indonesians and how to prepare our human resources for the new millennium. This is not an impossible scenario and perhaps we should even count our blessings even if this happens, because it is Malaysia and not some other country much lesser than Indonesia itself, a more frightening scenario indeed.

However, we all know, Indonesia was colonized by a much smaller country for over 350 years. Will history repeat itself?

Perhaps the above suggestions are a little harsh, but sometimes it has to be so to emphasize such an important point. The point is that human resources development and education cannot be nibbled at the edges particularly in Indonesia which is under siege from competition, political and economic instability and avoidable decay.

The nibbling should be stopped and a more strategic approach should be put in place henceforth. Education is not an experiment, it is the future of the country and its people. Do it right, the country and the people will prosper. Do it wrong and half-heartedly, the country and the people will suffer. Under current technological explosions, the country and the people may suffer forever.

In addition, treating education in isolation is not appropriate for Indonesia in its current development. Norway, Sweden and Denmark perhaps can treat education as an intellectual pursuit. But Indonesia cannot currently afford to do so. It must look at education as a means to some ends, at least for the foreseeable future. Indonesia needs both short term and strategic education and human resources plans. However, the urgent need is for the short term plan. We have so little time and will therefore need to move very quickly.

The Human Resources Master Plan must define what sort of Indonesians we want in the next 10 to 15 years or even 50 years. We need to identify the gaps between what we want to be in that future and our current self. Then we should seek practical ways and means to close those gaps, set the system up to carry these out, measure and monitor how these systems work towards the objectives, continually correct the path and improve the Plan until the objectives are achieved.

Of course this is a text book and basic first step of management. Perhaps it is such a basic and fundamental step that it was neglected by the powers that be over a number of eras in Indonesia. It may help to suggest here that education and human resources be consciously brought together and people be well informed of the need to bring these two aspects together.

The ministry of labor and the ministry of education should be dissolved, replaced by a new Ministry for Human Resources. This new ministry should then be charged with the above basic steps to coordinate the education and training requirements, to meet both the country's short as well as long term human resources development.

If this is considered too revolutionary, then we should ask whether we know how sick our human resources and education spokes are around the wheel of Indonesia's survival.

The writer is Executive Director of the Indonesian Institute for Management Development (IPMI) and Director of its Center for Corporate Governance and Empowerment in Jakarta.