Education reform: Mind over matter

Education reform: Mind over matter

By Simon Marcus Gower

JAKARTA (JP): Reform has become an extremely popular word in
Indonesia, but have its implication and accompanying objectives
been fully articulated, understood and explored?

Is the concept of reform being swept away in a whirlwind of
popular hopes and aspirations, while true reform becomes a
distant prospect?

Clearly, any process of reform takes time, but it is
fundamentally important that reform be clearly placed within a
framework for change for the better. Reform that instills change
to improve the future rather than simply rejecting and being
reactionary to the past.

To reform is to improve by alteration, to correct errors
through the removal of defects and to abolish abuse or
malpractice.

If the calls for reform are merely echoes of cries of
rejection of the past and not established upon solid grounds for
a better future, then the reform process will be ill-founded and
liable to flounder in a quagmire of repeated mistakes.

For Indonesia, what must surely be pursued is at least some
manifestation of democracy and facilitating people with the
potential for betterment. Both of these conditions may be closely
allied to the achievement of a better system of education.

However, democracy ought to be concerned with the empowerment
of people and a central means of empowering people is ensuring
that they are educated.

In turn, they may then empower themselves and others -- the
concept and the ideal can grow to spread the benefits of
education. Thus a key component in the creation of a reform
process ought to be reform of education for all Indonesians.

Many have called for the reform of the education system in
Indonesia; but what are the objectives of such reform and how
might such an objective be realized? Education is unquestionably
vital to a nation's life; but in Indonesia's case it would appear
that the New Order's era devised and maintained a highly
structured and controlled system of education that has rendered
the current need for reform.

As Nurcholish Madjid, rector of Paramadina Mulya University,
described it in an interview (The Jakarta Post Nov. 18, 1998),
the government's regimental approach of forcing all schools to
accomplish the government designed curricula... has led to the
adoption of a one-track, monolinear way of thinking. Thus the
existing mode of education may be seen as a system of control
rather than one that empowers and liberates students to think for
themselves in an original and progressive way.

A notable development in the education planning for this
nation has been the desire to increasingly incorporate the use of
the English language across the whole of the curricula; i.e. the
English language will not only be taught as a subject in and of
its own right, but will also be used to teach other subjects.

Such a development is, perhaps, a reflection of the desire to
reform and improve the education system, but is such a goal
realistic and realizable within the actually of the Indonesian
education system?

The teaching of English alone in Indonesian schools is
evidently in need of considerable reform. As Chaedar Alwasilah
showed in his two articles (The Jakarta Post Dec. 8 and Dec. 9
1998 respectively), the teaching of the English language in
Indonesia has also been subjected to a regimented education
approach.

This has left the teaching of English in a state that has
questionable relevance and value to the world in which Indonesia
and Indonesia's students alike must exist and attempt to prosper.

Observations from personal experiences as a teacher in
Indonesia have shown me the consistency with which the existing
English Language education system is indeed at the very least in
need of reassessment in order to make syllabus objectives
realizable given the realities of the resources available -- in
particular teaching staff.

Consistently, learners of the English language have been
encountered that have been put through the regimented approach to
education that prevails. This, in the case of English language
learning, means that their knowledge has been developed in a
highly formal and grammar-oriented manner. So much so that they
have developed a quite thorough knowledge of the language but
have failed to become competent users of the language.

What effectively has happened is that they have, to a limited
degree, become linguists in their quite theoretical study of the
language rather than being guided toward becoming practical users
of the language.

As a consequence, one may experience the seeming anomaly of
encountering a learner of the language who possesses considerable
knowledge of the way the language is constructed, (that is its
structure/grammar), but is unable to communicate accurately and
in a reasonable, comprehensive manner due to a failure to educate
to bring that learner to a point where use of the language is as
developed as theoretical knowledge.

Recently I had occasion to speak at some length to two
learners -- one who has attended an English course and would no
doubt score well in a grammar test, the other has not attended an
English course but in his day-to-day activities has to
communicate consistently in English.

The former of these two lacked the creativity and sense of
freedom to use the language he knew in an inventive and fluent
manner, the latter, while probably possessing less knowledge of
the grammar, enjoyed the sense of freedom and creativity to use
the language and communicate with greater clarity and interest.

Why should this situation prevail? Both of these people
possessed sufficient ability in the language to make their
meaning understood, but the latter's communicative ability
outstripped that of the former's. It seems that the speaker with
the greater communicative ability had been freed from the burden
of the closed and controlled thinking that is endemic in the
Indonesian education system.

How can such problems be addressed? How can an anomaly such as
that noted above be redressed?

Creativity, independence and flexibility in education may go a
long way in helping to redress these kinds of problems. A culture
of inclusion that encourages the students to be active
participants in their own education rather than merely passively
being spoon-fed and led in a controlled and mechanical way may be
beneficial.

Respect for an appreciation of the individual are critical
concepts in developing an education system that enjoys a
sufficient degree of sophistication to be helping to bring
students to a point where they are both well educated and well
rounded people that may interact and succeed within their local
communities.

Greater independence and flexibility for both schools and
teachers will allow them to better meet the specific needs of
their students.

Can education reform really happen in Indonesia? Undoubtedly
the challenges are great, but equally undoubtedly the will to
reform, to change for the better, does exist.

Years of regimented education will have had a deep and lasting
effect and, as a consequence, true reform will take time to
emerge. The need for change may be considerable and, given the
increasingly information-based and globalized nature of our
world, change may be required quickly and efficiently.

However, time need not necessarily be seen as an enemy here.
All nations, no matter how democratic and developed they may
seem, have evolving systems of education.

A key element of a sophisticated system of education is its
ability to accommodate change and improve as a consequence. Thus
the desire for reform should be welcomed and viewed positively as
an aspect of growth for a developing nation.

But patience and a carefully considered reform process for
education in particular ought to be applied. The value of
education is inestimable. Aristotle, when asked what the
difference between an educated man and an uneducated man was,
answered: "The same difference as between being alive and being
dead."

Indeed, perhaps one of the greatest of human rights is that of
the right to an education; perhaps in our modern age more than
any time before.

The desire for education reform in Indonesia is commendable
and right. Through appropriate application of this will for
change, reform can and almost inevitably will occur, but
realistic objectives need to be set.

Genuine reform takes time, and worthy and workable change for
the better needs to be given time to evolve. Flexibility and
inclusion ought to be valued in this reform era, rather than the
rigidity and control of the New Order era.

The writer is a director of Academic English at International
University Transfer Programs in Jakarta