Legislators told to delay education bill endorsement

Legislators told to delay education bill endorsement

Kurniawan Hari
The Jakarta Post
Jakarta

House of Representatives Deputy Speaker Muhaimin Iskandar urged
fellow lawmakers on Monday to resolve all of the contentious
issues in the national education bill before bringing it to a
House plenary meeting for endorsement.

Legislators deliberating the bill have yet to resolve three
issues -- the introduction that serves as the basis of the bill,
the function and role of national education, and the recognition
of five religions in the country.

House Commission VI for education affairs agreed earlier to
settle the issues through a vote should lawmakers fail to reach a
consensus.

However, Muhaimin said legislators should avoid voting on
these issues because that would have a serious impact on the
entire nation.

"Legislators must not insist on endorsing the bill if they
cannot accommodate the people's aspirations. We can vote on the
presidential elections bill, but we cannot do that on the
education bill," Muhaimin said during a meeting with a delegation
from Makassar, South Sulawesi, and councillors from Nias, North
Sumatra.

Muhaimin said a hasty endorsement of the education bill would
create disharmony among the people.

Commission VI members and Minister of National Education Abdul
Malik Fadjar are negotiating to settle the three issues before
the bill's scheduled endorsement on June 10.

Muhaimin of the National Awakening Party (PKB) emphasized that
the bill should accommodate the aspirations of the people.

At least two parties, PKB and the Indonesian Democratic Party
of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), have called for a delay in the
bill's endorsement.

During the meeting with Muhaimin, the delegations from
Makassar and Nias demanded that the House not endorse the bill,
some of whose articles they said were not in line with the 1945
Constitution.

Anwar Arifin, a deputy chairman of the commission who took
part in the meeting with the delegations, said legislators
deliberating the education bill came from various backgrounds.

He said legislators from Aceh and Padang, West Sumatra,
brought with them Islamic values, while lawmakers from Papua and
Ambon introduced the values of Protestantism and Catholicism.

Anwar said the articles in the bill reflected the maximum
compromise legislators could reach.

Separately, the Inter-Islamic Universities Cooperation, which
claims to represent dozens of Islamic universities, met with
House Speaker Akbar Tandjung to demand the House endorse the
education bill immediately.

The spokesman for the group, Qomari Anwar, said the education
bill accommodated the aspirations of the people, therefore there
was no reason to delay its endorsement.

Qomari, the rector of Hamka University, said the meeting with
the House speaker was attended by representatives from 18 Islamic
universities in Jakarta, Bandung (West Java), Yogyakarta, Riau,
Makassar (South Sulawesi), Palembang (South Sulawesi) and
Surakarta (Central Java).