Independence in education

Independence in education

Until the fall of the New Order regime and the birth of the
reform movement in 1999, Indonesia's 1945 Constitution -- so
called because it was decreed on Aug.18, 1945, just a day after
the country's proclamation of independence -- was without doubt
one of the most admired documents in the country's history.

Sure, it was terse, and even vague and spartan in its
description of the rights and duties of the state and its
citizens. But, its proponents said, it provided for a stable
government while seeking to promote the well-being of the common
man. True, too, as one of the document's formulators remarked at
the time, much would depend on the "man behind the gun", but in
1945 nobody feared that anyone chosen to lead the nation would
abuse his or her power and steal the people's money.

Unfortunately, it wasn't long before all those assumptions
proved to be false. In 1959, president Sukarno used the 1945
Constitution to establish what he termed "guided democracy",
which was in effect a form of dictatorship, with him as president
for life. A bloody leftist coup took place in 1965, which, in
1967, led to the dictatorial and utterly corrupt regime of
president Soeharto.

With the downfall of Soeharto, a fairly elected parliament,
comprising the House of Representatives (DPR) and the People's
Consultative Assembly (MPR), sought to remedy those
constitutional shortcomings. The 1945 Constitution was duly
amended, but its preamble, which contains what might be
considered a kind of "social contract" -- a compromise formula
known as Pancasila, to keep Indonesia's immensely diverse
societal groups united -- was maintained intact.

It is on the basis of that preamble, which is, of necessity,
terse in its vocabulary, that the government has drawn up a draft
for Indonesia's new education law that now lies before the House
of Representatives for deliberation. The draft is expected to be
submitted to the appropriate House Committee next month and
passed into law on May 2, Indonesia's National Education Day.

Unfortunately, the spirit of democratic reform that had
inspired the earlier drive to amend the 1945 Constitution does
not seem to have trickled down to those who drafted the new law.
Critics have been quick to detect in the draft a certain ambition
on the part of the state to reestablish its old grip on the
private lives of citizens. This, of course, is evident from the
very fact that the new law seeks to regulate every level of
education, from kindergarten to university. Nowhere, though, is
this as glaring as in the field of religious instruction and
education.

Besides general subjects, such as history or mathematics,
students at every level of education are entitled to receive
religious instruction "according to the faith they adhere to,
taught by teachers of a religion identical to that of their own",
the draft says. Education, after all, it says in its preamble,
must be aimed at "establishing keimanan (faith) and ketakwaan
(piety) in Indonesians, besides imparting general skills that are
aimed at "promoting the intelligence of the nation."

Bickering over terms such as ketakwaan aside -- which, in the
view of many, has unmistakable Islamic overtones -- there is a
strong feeling among Indonesians, even the pious, that religious
education (as opposed to religious instruction, which many
reject) should be left to the home and the family. Some critics
even see the religious conflicts of late as recent phenomena and
the natural consequences of mandatory religious instruction for
all students under the Soeharto regime.

Given such far-reaching, long-term consequences of making the
wrong decisions, let us hope that our legislators will let
themselves be guided, not only by their conscience and wisdom,
but by the same spirit of reform that ousted the previous
authoritarian regime and brought them to their present positions
of power. Let's not take the education of our children, and
thereby, the future of the nation, lightly.