Globalization era and education in Indonesia

Mochtar Buchori, Legislator, Jakarta, mbuchori@indo.net.id

Globalization has come to us, and no nation, country or government can escape from it. It is a huge global force, economic and political force, whose actions affect the lives of big and small countries alike, either positively or negatively.

We have thus far been a poor performer in this highly competitive global game. We lose much, and gain little. The hope is that we will have generations that will perform better at this game. This hope will materialize only if we succeed in redressing our education, and transform it into an institution capable of giving the young what the late scholar Soedjatmoko termed national learning capability. This is the capability of a nation to learn from experiences encountered in daily life and the capability to learn to become wise in life.

This redressing act can be referred to as globalizing our education. This should be performed at two levels, i.e. at the operational level and at the fundamental level.

At the operational level, globalizing education means adjusting education to changes in educational practices brought about by globalization. The purpose is to prevent our education from becoming obsolete and irrelevant within new global practices in education.

At the fundamental level, globalizing our education means also paying due attention to the idiosyncrasies of our educational system and society. This is to anchor our renewed education to social and cultural realities.

The main difference between globalization at these two levels is that globalization at the fundamental level purports to generate an educational system capable of preparing the coming generations for an intelligent participation in globalization. The dream is that Indonesia will be represented by people who are conscious of the needs of their country while performing their role as active members of a global community.

How do we globalize our education at the operational level?

No one has any previous experience. Our education, after being modified for globalization, should be able to prepare the coming generations for more effective communication and interaction with people from other cultures. So the the range of foreign languages our education system offers must be reexamined.

Two other important ideas are about broadening horizons, and about making the young aware of the man-made disasters that threatens our life on this planet. We must thus to think about courses that will make the coming generations literate about our environmental conditions, human conflicts, and about the accomplishments of organizations whose mission is to save our planet and humanity itself.

The agenda for globalizing education at the fundamental level would include the essential step, at this stage, to make an in- depth inquiry of basic causes of our poor performance in the globalization game, and how to correct it -- and how our culture, political system, and economic condition can be held responsible for our poor performance. Then the issue would be how the future generations can overcome these obstacles.

can look at how countries like the U.S., Canada, members of the European Union, and Japan, have prepared their youth to become trustworthy representatives of their respective countries in the globalization game.

We should, of course, not simply copy their systems, but this kind of comparative study should make it possible for us to know why in their respective cultural settings their systems work. From this point we can sketch the contours of our globalization- oriented educational reform.

The preparation of teachers should make them aware of the facts and demands of globalization, about the basic features of our culture, our economic and political systems, and about the evolution of our educational system. This must be made part of the reform.

This is a huge order, but unless this is done, we will never have an educated manpower capable of transforming our educational system into a national instrument with which to improve our performance in the next phases of globalization.

Only an educational force that understands the reform agenda and has a grasp of the basic idea behind the program can effectively implement a platform for a comprehensive educational reform. The best implementers of any educational program are those who can inspire and goad the young toward reaching the dream envisioned by the program.

To paraphrase Soedjatmoko, reformers must learn how to light the fire of hope in the hearts of the young, and how to keep this flame burning.