Experts advocate new approach to human resources
Experts advocate new approach to human resources
By Santi W.E. Soekanto
UJUNGPANDANG, South Sulawesi (JP): A leading scholar advocates an overhaul of the approach to national human resource development, proposing the use of newer concepts on intelligence and cultural value systems.
Iskandar Alisjahbana of the Bandung Institute of Technology said yesterday that Indonesia should have the courage to start a resource development program which directly utilizes the latest understanding of the multiplicity of human intelligences.
He also spoke of the need to use a curriculum based on new concepts of education, "where self-exploration, interactive multimedia, networking, hands-on-skill training, teamwork, diversity...are basic components".
Speaking in the national convention on education, due to finish today, Alisjahbana referred to the concept of "multiple intelligences" introduced in 1983 by American psychologist Howard Gardner.
In his eponymous book, Gardner argued that the whole concept of the Intelligence Quotient (IQ) and of unitary views of intelligence had to be challenged and replaced.
"Our society suffers from the bias of focusing on those human abilities that are readily testable, believing that all the answers to a given problem lie in one kind of thinking, usually logic or math," Alisjahbana said.
The old concept of intelligence, for instance, would rank a Irianese child from the back of beyond low in the IQ scales, originally devised in a Western country and thus using cultural parameters he is unfamiliar with.
Gardner claims there are seven kinds of intelligence with equal weight: linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal intelligences. Using this model, a child who is able to navigate a boat using the stars is intelligent, even though he may be unable to read.
"The purpose of human resource development should be to develop intelligence and to help people reach their ideals," Alisjahbana said.
"The ideal human resource development of the future could be based on the assumption that not all people have the same interests and not all of us learn in the same way," he said.
Alisjahbana argued that the view of education is also changing, with more organizations linking learning to productivity.
Instead of a one way information flow, such as a teacher addressing a group of passive students, new teaching techniques are two-way like the Internet, collaborative and interdisciplinary," he said.
"The result is increased flexibility, better retention and lower cost," he said.
He predicted that the old tradition of classroom lectures would soon give way to individual exploration. Individual work would be replaced by team learning, which can be made easier with the use of hi-tech media.
The concept of the "omniscient teacher" can then be replaced with the teacher as guide, and homogeneity will yield to diversity.
"A keen observer will see some parallel trends and analogies in these changing educational paradigms with the new idea of multiple intelligences," he said.
Computer expert Dali S. Naga from the Teachers College in Jakarta, supported the wider use of sophisticated facilities, such as computers.
He cited a study conducted last year in Canada which showed that students benefit greatly from the use of the Internet. In the study, students were assigned to take up some scientific projects, display the results in their homepage in the Internet.
Through the network, other schools around the world could access the homepage and pose questions and suggestions to the students. "A process of learning among those students from different countries then occurred," Dali said.
He maintained, however, that use of computer technology must not take the "human factor" out of the learning process. "The process should combine human superiority with the superiority of computer technology for a humane learning process," he said.
"How to deal with the negative impact of computer technology? Look at how we have been dealing with the negative impact TV has on our children," he said, pointing out that problems will always exist and that people manage as best as they can.