Education system in Indonesia

Education system in Indonesia

Your article on the Indonesian educational system (The Jakarta
Post, Nov. 5) leaves a lot to be desired. Perhaps a way to
evaluate an educational system is to look at the success of its
graduates.

When I did my PhD at the University of Manitoba in Canada from
1996 to 2000, there were 83 lecturers on staff who were
originally from India, more than half as many from China and none
from Indonesia!

How many internationally acclaimed scientists from Indonesia
in either the natural or social sciences are widely known? Why
does the fourth largest nation in the world produce so few
scientific research papers in renowned international journals?

Unlike schools in the West, where critical thinking and
individualism are encouraged while teaching dogma is banned --
most Indonesians don't even know that religious instruction is
not allowed in public schools in the West -- Indonesian schools
continue to foster the opposite.

Teaching children blind obedience and beliefs based on
insufficient (or contradictory) evidence, such as religious
dogma, is contrary to teaching them to be intellectually curious
and to rely on the scientific method in their thinking, which is
the best thing we've got in the last 200 years. Without the
scientific method, we would perhaps still be counting how many
angels can sit on top of a pin (a major intellectual pursuit in
Europe during the Middle Ages).

No wonder some Indonesian parents are not happy with
Indonesian education and choose private western-like schools
instead for their children in spite of the high cost. Perhaps it
is time to take a hard and critical look at "Indonesian
educational values that the private schools must respect to
be allowed to operate", which the editorial refers to without
explaining these values.

If Indonesia wants to have an internationally competitive
workforce, a major overhaul of its educational system is only the
first step in a long process that lies ahead.

NESA ILICH
Calgary, Canada