Emancipating minds
Today, May 2, Indonesia commemorates National Education Day. The date was chosen in remembrance of Ki Hajar Dewantara who was born 106 years ago in Yogyakarta.
It was he who pioneered the first truly Indonesian school with the intent of addressing the segregation experienced by the indigenous population under the Dutch colonial rule.
He, along with other famous historical figures such as Kartini and Dewi Sartika, understood the true value of education. It was more than a simple process of teaching people to read and write, or a diploma to hang on the wall.
Education was, and still is, about emancipation (for men and women alike). Education is the foundation of social empowerment, economic mobility and leads to national development.
A nation can be de jure independent. Nevertheless, without an educated mass its soul remains colonized by ignorance.
It is no coincidence that the founders of the nation's nationalist movements were the educated few who were enlightened through the liberating world of academia.
This nation's independence was paid for with centuries of blood and suffering. But it was the innovation of educated nationalists who charted Indonesia's road to independence.
Education was the initial fuel and eventual bond of an Indonesian consciousness.
In this era of cyberspace, a strong public education system is a requisite for any developed nation. It is not natural resources or military might which is the determinant of success. Countries like Japan, South Korea and Singapore have shown that the backbone of their economic rise is its determined, skilled and educated peoples.
Despite the populist rhetoric and political posturing, since the economic crisis of 1997, education has become a secondary consideration for this nation.
While some of our gifted children shine in international academic olympiads, their achievement is, sadly, no reflection on the prevailing state of education.
In a "crisis-like" environment where the main objective is survival, education becomes a mere tool to that affect.
That being the case, our education outlook has not progressed much from the colonial era in which education for the indigenous population was designed to ensure the public service was properly staffed.
We seem to be moving away, as one writer wrote in this newspaper, from an education system "connected to the humanitarian and holistic needs for intellectual and social growth."
Here education no longer empowers, but condemns people to predetermined servility.
Our distractions also brings us to superfluous national debates concerning sex education, religion in the curriculum and school uniforms. Yes these issues are important, but they are seasoning for the more important, and basic, entree -- simple nourishment for hungry minds.
Schools, of course, should also be free from political interests.
Vocational education must go hand-in-hand with a curriculum that is geared toward intellectual enlightenment. Primary school children should be injected with creativity, while higher education is an intellectual emancipation ground, where humanity's greatest works -- in science and the arts; and concepts conservatism, secularism, religion, ethics, the rule of law and humanitarianism -- are discovered and developed.
We need more than simple robots who can screw bolts in a production line.
Without the poets and thinkers this country would never have become independent. Their absence in the future dooms this nation to global servility -- colonialism by other means.
A recommitment is needed. What other better investment can this nation make then investing in the education and health for its citizens?
It is not a matter of sparse resources. Neither is it a case of dividing resources equally to all sectors for development. It is about saying that the country wants to commit to emancipating its people regardless of the cost.
Enlightenment never comes cheap. But the cost of national retardation is even more costly.