Home economics education not yet developed: Observer

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)