Education that lifts children out of poverty

Education that lifts children out of poverty

Mochtar Buchori, Jakarta

Wealthy parents are inclined to think that their children need
the kind of education that ordinary schools cannot offer, i.e.
good education with international standards. Many of these
parents have got together and created special schools for this
purpose.

Children from poor families have been facing similar problems.
They need a school with educational programs that will help them
rise out of their poverty. They need education that will make
them understand why their families and their community have
become entangled in a vicious cycle of poverty that has lasted
for generations. They need education that can show them the
various paths to a life without poverty.

Why do these poor children need this kind of education?

There are several answers to this, but the most important is
that education tailored for average children -- students from
families that are neither rich nor poor -- will not provide the
children from poor families with the set of knowledge, skills,
and attitudes they need to exit from their inherited poverty.

Two basic notions are related to this premise. One is that
poverty does not, generally speaking, come suddenly. Poverty
everywhere has its genesis. Secondly, poverty can be conquered.
There are ways to overcome poverty.

Based on these two notions, educational programs for poor
children should ideally be characterized by three features, i.e.
to foster the will to conquer poverty, to develop knowledge about
the history of their poverty, and to instill understanding,
concerning ways to exit from poverty without harming society. The
first is called the conative aspect; the second the cognitive
aspect; and the third the ethical aspect.

Can you get this kind of education in mainstream schools?

I do not think so. Mainstream schools are not designed to
guide students to develop a strong personal and collective will
or resolution. They are also not designed to help students
understand the origin and evolution of poverty. And its interest
in ethics, especially social ethics, is at best marginal.
Mainstream schools are primarily concerned with implanting
knowledge.

Schools with special programs for poor children, as outlined
above, are intended to rescue lives, i.e. to rescue poor children
from the descent into more misery. If school education fails to
guide these poor children to emerge from their poverty, they
will, in all probability, forever be locked in a life marked by
aggravated deprivation. And from this condition they can easily
degenerate into lives that constitute sources of many social
ills. Unaided, these poor children will be lost in a life that is
harmful to society and detrimental to every effort to build a
clean and decent society.

Such is the life prospect of children coming from poor
families if we fail to rescue them. And how many poor children
are there in our country at this moment? I do not have the
figures. But I am sure it is big enough. The percentage of
children from moderately and extremely poor families is certainly
greater than that of children from rich families. Yet, public
attention to and public thinking about special education for poor
children is much lower and much less intensive than that given to
the problem of developing special education for children of
wealthy families.

What should the curriculum for this kind of education look
like? I do not know yet. But curriculum is not the only worry in
this regard. Before tackling the problem of curriculum building,
there are more fundamental problems to solve.

The most fundamental is the question of how to raise hope and
the will to improve life among these poor children. Viewed from
this angle, curriculum is not the decisive factor. Another factor
that is equally important -- if not more important -- is the
problem of building an institutional character that reflects the
mission to which the institution is committed; and how to
generate an educational atmosphere needed to support students in
their quest for a better life.

The conative aspect of education that purports to help
students improve their life should be clearly felt as an
education toward a disciplined life. Students should be trained
to exercise their judgment before taking actions, and to focus
their choices on actions that in the long run will lead them to
improving their life. They should also feel that they are
continuously trained to persevere, to endure hardships.
Consistent implementation of this strategy will make the school
perceived by students and the public alike as an educational
institution that puts heavy emphasis on training for a
disciplined life.

The cognitive education aspect purports to create
understanding among students of how their families and their
community have become engulfed in poverty, and should create
among them the feeling of curiosity. Not only curiosity about
poverty and ways to conquer it, but also curiosity about
significant collective actions taken in the past by their
families and their community, and the consequences of these
actions on their lives. Nurtured consistently, this curiosity
will eventually create among students the ability to learn on
their own. This is often called "learning capability", and it
constitutes the distinguishing mark of person, family, community,
or nation that eventually becomes successful in their search for
a better life. If a school consistently employs this strategy it
will be perceived by the public as an educational institution
with a high degree of intellectuality.

And finally, the ethical aspect that purports to guide
students into ability to separate ethical conduct in their search
for better life from violent protest against the establishment
and the mainstream culture should create among students the
feeling of self-esteem and decency. This will make the public
perceive such a school as an institution that teaches decency,
tolerance and broad-mindedness.

A school that employs this kind of educational strategy will
be able to demonstrate a character marked by discipline,
intellectuality and decency. Such a school may be poor
materially, but overwhelmingly rich culturally and spiritually.

Is it still necessary for us to develop such an educational
program after we joined the campaign for the Millennium
Development Goals? Absolutely! It will be our national signature
to our pledge to end poverty in this part of the world well
before 2025.

The writer earned his doctorate in education from Harvard
University in the United States.