Indonesia's education
Indonesia's education
Annisa Eska Larasati (14), Class 3T/YPII An-Nisaa Sr. High School
A country has to realize how important education is to move forward. Indonesia seems not to have realized this, which makes our country move backward.
A long time ago, Malaysia recruited teachers from our country, but now we are far behind Malaysia [in education].
To make Indonesia's education grow again, we need to invest some money into it. The money has to be invested wisely and not corrupted. Some people think that giving money to [meet] teachers' needs is [wasting] money. We have to change that kind of thinking [and realize] that giving money to teachers is an investment. We have to make sure that teachers have a good life and appropriate teaching [background/qualification], that schools have good facilities and that all people have the same opportunity to attend schools.
The national curriculum often changes, which shows that Indonesia doesn't have a proper basis in education. If we don't even have the basis, how can we move forward? I think Indonesia has to have one correct basis and stick to it.
"Education has to contain three things, heart, brain and skill" -- that's what Malik Fadjar [minister of national education under Megawati Soekarnoputri] said. So at a school, we have to give students things that have do with all three. We can't just push their brains to work and forget about how important feelings and skills are.
Now, the government takes too much of a role in education. Hey, this is the globalization era. We have to let the public do what they want, we just have to make a standard for them. The standard has to be made by an independent organization that is run by experts.
To make program wajib belajar 9 tahun [mandatory elementary and junior high school education] successful, the government has to make elementary and junior high school free of charge, just like in developed countries, because today 30 percent of all children do not continue their education through junior high school.
We, the Indonesian people, can't just blame the government for what happened to our education. We have to take a part in improving our education, because this is our country, and not only the government's country.