Education is not an experiment

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.