Improve graduate quality
It was interesting to read Frank Richardson's perceptive letter of Jan. 27, Causes of the crisis. He, like other recent contributors to your paper, views the cause of recent troubles as more fundamental than poor monetary and fiscal policy.
Two basic factors which he identifies are an emphasis on the notional, rather than the actual, in important fields such as education, and "a spirit of optimism and consumption disproportionate to the productivity of Indonesia's human resources".
My own experience supports this view. Having worked in Indonesian state universities throughout the 1980s, and again in the late 1990s, it seems to me that improvements in the higher education system are lagging behind material progress made in society.
Symbols of prosperity, such as televisions and motorbikes, are real enough, and are being acquired mainly by university graduates. Yet any casual stroll around a university campus will reveal the truth behind grand policy statements issued by the Ministry of Education and Culture and new curricula being developed in the universities. Indonesian students spend more time waiting for their lecturers to show up, than actually listening to lectures. Yet more time is wasted sitting in buses on route to brand new out of town campuses, rather than studying.
The national curriculum decrees all students should study English to enable them to read English language academic literature. Likewise, a university faculty will specify a certain standard in English which students must attain. But what does it amount to in reality? Often only 50 hours classroom instruction, and this for students who emerge from secondary school with only basic English. The result is that most students are unable to read English texts in their field of study, and therefore fail to gain access to important areas of knowledge. The learning of English is notional, not actual.
Of course, there are dedicated individuals working hard to improve the system. But too many students still discover that all they need to get through university is patience, passivity and loyalty to superiors, qualities once ideal for a career in the civil service, but insufficient to compete successfully in the global market.
MARTIN LAMB
Jambi