Home economics education not yet developed: Observer
JAKARTA (JP): Home economics education in Indonesia remains underdeveloped, despite the fact that it was introduced here 44 years ago, an observer said yesterday.
Dewi Motik Pramono, chairwoman of the organizing committee of the eighth Asian Regional Association for Home Economics (ARAHE) conference, said that Indonesians do not pay enough attention to this discipline. She said that, by contrast, advanced countries, such as Japan and the United States, had already taught basic home economics to their people.
"Home economics is a discipline to optimize the individual's ability to work economically within a family," said Dewi, a graduate of home economics department of the Jakarta Teachers' Training College.
The conference, which was opened on Monday, will end today. It is being participated in by 350 delegates from 16 Asian and Pacific countries.
Dewi said that home economics was a discipline concerned, not only with cooking and sewing, but on that emphasized efficiency in relation to time, place, manpower and individual abilities.
Cooking and sewing were only aspects of the discipline, she said.
According to Dewi, home economics is an integrated discipline which students can practice immediately after they have studied it.
"At present Indonesia only has an undergraduate program for home economics education, said Dewi, who is also a successful businesswoman.
A delegate from the Philippines said that this was in contrast with her country, which already has a post-graduate program for the discipline.
The definition of home economics is the study of families and the management of resources available to them for the satisfaction of basic needs in changing environments, said Lydia B. Arribas, the Philippines' delegate, who distributed an article to the congress participants.
Lydia, who is a professor at the University of the Philippines, said the discipline was introduced in her country in the early 1920s.
The University of the Philippines already had seven undergraduate programs and nine post-graduate programs in home economics, she said.
Meanwhile, Minister of Religious Affairs Tarmizi Taher, who was the keynote speaker yesterday, said that religious education had a function to perform in meeting the spiritual needs of students.
He said that, for example, Moslem children here were taught the basic teachings of the Koran from kindergarten.
In the religious education, Indonesian teachers used an integrated system, he said, in which the family as well as teachers of other subjects also play a role.
Today all delegates will visit PT Martina Berto, a herbal medicine and cosmetics factory, the Indonesia in Miniature Park and the International Trade Center.
The next ARAHE conference will be held in South Korea in 1997 while a meeting of the International Federation for Home Economics will take place in Thailand next year.(05)