Indonesia's school face a dilemma about idealism

By Mochtar Buchori

JAKARTA (JP): From my childhood on until my late twenties I was continuously exposed to a rather romantic view of education. I was always told that education is a very powerful cultural force that shapes the future of our nation.

To illustrate this view it was always pointed out to me that all our national leaders -- from Dr. Wahidin Wirahoesada to Bung Karno and Bung Hatta -- succeeded in changing the political panorama of the country because their education gave them the ability to read the course of history and see the historical possibility for bringing about a big political change.

These national leaders were able to transcend the colonial design of their education, and used all the knowledge and skills they had received to marshal the existing popular force for strengthening the national struggle towards independence.

Years of exposure to this kind of rhetoric made me believe, for quite a time, that education is indeed a great cultural force.

Since the early 1960s, however, I have gradually lost this belief. My real life experiences since that time completely changed this romantic view.

Education has, in my view, stopped being a cultural force in this country. It has no longer the capability to influence the course of political development. Rather it has become an instrument of politics. The relationship between education and politics has become asymmetric.

Noting how our educational establishment behaved when facing political pressures -- both at the time of the old order and during the present new order -- I cannot escape the impression that education exists primarily to serve the interest of the political establishment, and fails to defend its basic principles.

The very sad thing in this regard is that politics itself does not seem to be an independent force in this country. Until very recently politics has been dancing to the tunes of the big economic players.

The existing relationship between politics, economy and education suggests that economy has been the real master of the house, politics has been "the butler" of the economy, and education has all this time been "the valet" of politics. Education has thus become "the valet of a butler".

Of course, no educational system in this world can afford to neglect the political interest of the nation.

However, any responsible and respectable system always retains the right to decide how a national program for political education should be designed, and how it should be delivered.

No respectable educational system gives a full mandate to political entities outside the system to design and develop a finished program for political education.

This policy has been adopted for the reason that politicians do not in general know much and care little about pedagogical sensitivities.

The present behavior of education also indicates that educational idealism is vanishing. We no longer have educational visionaries who, like the late Ki Hadjar Dewantara and the late Ki Mohamad Said, always reflect about the kind of human being that education should produce in order to bring about a given kind of ideal society.

We no longer have educational leaders who reflect about the relationship that should be fostered between educational idealism and political idealism, and translate these reflections into educational programs.

We no longer have educational idealist who, again like Ki Hadjar Dewantara and Ki Mohamad Said, consistently refuse to subjugate education to politics.

These two leaders had their political views and beliefs, but once these views and beliefs were translated into educational principles no one was allowed to change them for the sake of pragmatic political gains.

What is educational idealism? It is a view concerning the ideal man that will emerge from the educational process. No real educator works without educational idealism. No real educator, for instance, will allow his or her disciples to remain trapped by the habit of solving existing problems through the "easiest way".

Instead, they will drill their pupils to solve any problem through the "right way", no matter how difficult and bothersome this path may initially seem to be.

This principle is consistently implemented out of deep concern for the future of the children. They are concerned that the habit of solving problems through "short cuts" will make them believe that the key to success in life is "outsmarting" others, and that life is made for them. Such an attitude will constitute a serious handicap later on in real life.

This question about educational idealism has become significant now that more and more parents begin to demand schools to prepare their children seriously for life in the globalized world.

These parents realize that life patterns have changed dramatically in this time of globalization, and that our old ways of educating children will not suffice for the future.

Our old educational system that has become accustomed to serve the interest of politics suddenly is expected to become an avant- garde force.

Can our educational system meet this expectation? Not as long as our educational community refuses to acknowledge that there is a functional relationship among education, politics and economy, and as long as it chooses to remain ignorant about these two other forces.

And not as long as it looks upon politics as an untouchable force, and upon economy as a force that belittles education. In short, education must first recover its own sense of identity and its sense of self-respect.

I am afraid that it will take a while before our educational community can elevate itself from its current social and academic status to a higher one.

And this will be acquired only if and when education as an academic discipline has developed a new way of looking at the task of bringing up children, in which the social and cultural aspects are systemically analyzed.

In the meantime the Indonesian school is in a real dilemma.

On the one hand, it has to seriously prepare the young generation for life in a globalized era, which it knows cannot be done if it persistently clings to the present official program.

But on the other hand it has no freedom to modify or change this program, because its hands are tied by the rigid policies adopted by the bureaucracy.

Our schools have to make the painful choice of either serving the young generation for the sake of the future of the nation, or serving the bureaucracy just for the sake of bureaucratic obedience.

It is a question that deeply touches the conscience of every good educator.

The writer is an observer of social and political affairs.