Indonesia's education system faces disaster

Indonesia's education system faces disaster

Yanuar Nugroho, Lecturer, Sahid University, Surakarta, Central Java,
yanuar-n@unisosdem.org

For those genuinely concerned about what is going on in the
education system in this country, the present might be the right
time to reflect on and rethink what we believe and value about
education as the basis of development. Let us examine these two
issues.

First, some state universities, after the government cut their
subsidy, are now seeking to earn money from an admissions scheme
for new students. Apart from the state university entrance scheme
(SPMB), many state universities have created a "special channel"
for those who have not been accepted through SPMB. This channel
simply requires these "special students" pay a "special rate" --
in some state universities it is formally termed a fee for
institutional development (BPI) -- after they have been offered a
place.

Take some examples. UNS, a state university in Surakarta,
Central Java, charges as much as Rp 75 million (around US$9,375)
for special students at the school of medicine. The University of
Indonesia charges Rp 120 million at a similar school. The same
thing is most likely taking place at other state universities.
Money really does matter when it comes to education, doesn't it?

Commercialization of education, some would say.

Second, almost at the same time, we also learned, some days
ago, that dozens of qualified Indonesian lecturers were applying
for (and some had obtained) permission to abandon their civil
service status, as they wanted to move to neighboring countries
such as Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei for "better income" and
"self development".

These two facts seem to contradict one another. What does it
mean?

So far, we may believe that education -- particularly the
formal kind -- is a powerful vehicle for any society to advance
itself. Nothing is wrong with this attitude, yet it seems that
either this goal is too high for us to really achieve, or we are
simply incapable. Why? There are two problems. The first deals
with why educational systems are organized and the other concerns
how.

Why are educational systems organized? One can see that the
purpose of education is to develop an individual's potential.
Education is organized as a capacity-building mechanism to
ascertain, empower and facilitate the progress of an individual
in relation to -- and for the sake of dealing with -- culture,
ethics and the common good.

Yet, another perspective, which is more powerful and becoming
dominant, is the understanding of education as preparatory
training for entering the job market and meeting its needs. It is
the direct result of a new way of organizing society, necessarily
demanded by the current, modern political economy of
globalization.

The latter perspective becomes the key to understanding what
actually takes place in our formal education and its recent
relationship to globalization. In the heart of today's
globalization is the modern economy, which needs
"interchangeable" as well as "modular" human resources to boost
economic performance.

According to Herry-Priyono (2002), the words "interchangeable"
and "modular" are the key to understanding the phenomenon. For
example, an engineer's absence, (for whatever reason, be it
sickness, leave, being laid off, retirement, etc), must be filled
by another engineer, just as for other professions, such as
analysts, accountants or even machine operators. This might sound
mercenary, but indeed it is the key to understanding the direct
link between formal education -- or schooling -- and
globalization.

Of course, education involves values. Yet, make no mistake:
Values do not necessarily mean the normative agenda of education;
instead -- to be precise -- the prevailing political-economic
situation, whether we like it or not, is what deeply affects the
mode of our formal education. What exactly does that mean?

Nowadays, formal education is no longer considered to be a
prerequisite for character and capacity building. Instead, formal
education simply prepares students to enter the labour market of
industrialized society. The proof? Look at the curriculum, which
indicates perfectly that the content and direction of formal
education simply serves the interests and needs of business and
industry. Thus, we can easily see that there are "favored" and
"most wanted" universities, schools, departments or subjects,
which precisely implies, "they offer the best chance to make
money after graduation."

The second problem is about how education is organized and
delivered to the public. For those who are aware of the power of
capital, it is clear that financial considerations are the
decisive factor in the formal educational infrastructure, in
order to meet the needs imposed by the political economy of
globalization, such as the need for laboratories, a computer-
literate society and the like.

In Indonesia, for example, the government's stated willingness
to allocate 20 percent of the state budget to education is not
even close to the reality -- it was only 2.8 percent in 1998 and
no more than 5 percent in the 2000 state budget. It is not
surprising, therefore, to learn that Indonesia's education
quality ranking is only 109 (of 174 countries), according to
UNICEF (2000). Of course, we cannot place everything on the
state's shoulders -- including setting priorities for formal
education -- as there are many factors, but the lack of financial
support is a very important one.

So, if for the sake of global competition the government cuts
all subsidies and taxes, we can now easily understand that state
universities, as a consequence, are forced to earn their own
money -- and commercialization appears to be the most desirable
path to follow. That, at a glance, does not appear that different
from the liberalization and privatization of other services --
even essential ones -- such as water, health and electricity. The
principle involved is clear: full cost recovery, which means
simply that education will no longer be delivered to people as a
right or because, as citizens, they are entitled to it.
Furthermore, education is perceived as a commodity whose
provision should be paid for in full -- and should even make a
profit.

Clearly, thus far, the typical mode of service delivery --
centralized public agency provision -- has had its successes and
failures. Therefore, without doubt, it must be improved. However,
in this era of globalization, the pendulum seems to have swung
from one extreme to the other. Current attempts to commercialize
services appear to have a simple logic: Establish a service
market where services are treated like commodities, sold and
traded freely -- including education.

Yet, education is a public good: Society in general is better
off because its people are well-educated, not merely well-
schooled. Consequently, services such as education inherently
occupy the public rather than private domain. They should
therefore be funded, managed and governed as such -- this is the
only direction that can be followed by future education policy-
makers and managers.

We exist in a river of history that is an everlasting battle
between "pragmatism" and "idealism"; it is impossible for us to
avoid the tension.

But be careful: Some solutions are more pragmatic than others
and can often lead to tragedy. If we make the wrong choices, they
will crush our own future.

The writer is also the director of Business Watch Indonesia in
Surakarta, Central Java, and a researcher at Uni Sosial Demokrat
Jakarta.