Misperception hinders changes in education

Misperception hinders changes in education

By Mochtar Buchori

JAKARTA (JP): Every educational system has gone through a transformation process at one time or another. Transformation is a rejuvenation process. To wisely guide a system through such a process is a very hard task. Most systems are either reluctant or afraid to adopt changes, until one day circumstances force them to change their entire foundations, structures and operations. Then transformation becomes an unavoidable necessity.

Several factors make transformation a difficult, sometimes even an impossible task. The flow of this process basically depends on our understanding of any new realities facing society, and on our vision concerning the nature of interdependence between schools and society. If these two things are clearly perceived, then the hurdles constraining a transformation process will be minimum.

But if our perceptions are muddled we will have great difficulty in steering our system through this rejuvenation process. One additional factor that makes educational transformation more difficult to achieve is society's perception of education. How do we perceive education?

It is a universal phenomenon, I think, that education is always associated with school. This is true whether you are in China, Iran or the United States. It is as if we universally believe that the only place where education takes place is at school.

We know, of course, that this is not true. We know that when a child comes to school for the first time, he or she brings with him or her a certain amount of education from home, from the family. We also know that after leaving school each person continues to seek and receive education.

In the workplace every person seeks and gets further education, non-formal or informal, from the boss and from colleagues. Within the society at large, each person receives education which helps him or her become mature or wise.

Maturity and wisdom is the product of formal, non-formal and informal education. All these practical experiences notwithstanding, most of us continue to think that education is practically synonymous with schooling. This view has a very strong influence on two things: one, on our perception concerning the relationship between family education, school education and out of school education; and two, on the way we perceive education as a field of study.

Let us examine these two questions more closely. Because of this traditional misperception, we tend to look at school education as a separate activity, having no links either with education at home or with education obtained within the society.

We habitually give only minimum attention to the kind of education that children attain from their family. And we almost never pay any attention to the rich opportunities for non-formal and informal education that can be found within the society.

At school, we never teach our students how to learn from non- formal and informal settings. It is a sad reality that school education is detached from family education and out of school education. It has been convincingly demonstrated that optimum achievement for each child can be reached only when there is close cooperation and correct mutual understanding between school and home.

It has also been amply demonstrated that success in life depends on our capacity to learn from non-formal and informal opportunities, in addition to our achievements in formal education.

In the absence of such cooperation and links, it is impossible for most children to achieve optimum realization of their potentials, and equally impossible for most adults to continually develop their potentials.

In this kind of situation, a child may still be a star student, but not a high achiever. In this kind of situation it is possible for an adult to become a big success, but not a person who makes things happen.

The consequence of this sad situation is that most children are underachievers, and that most adults do not grow beyond the limits of their formal education.

What price has been paid by this nation for allowing education to proceed on such a narrow and isolated conceptual base?

The price is a well educated workforce and excellence in the various branches of our national undertaking. What we have instead is a poor workforce and mediocrity in many fields.

Another consequence of this traditional misperception is the reduction of our national capability to deal effectively with macro educational problems. Because of this traditional misperception, education as a field of study is primarily conceived as the study of teaching and learning within a school setting.

The study of education has been confined to inquiries about micro educational problems. Macro problems in education, such as the relationship between school as a social institution and politics and economics as social forces, have never been touched or scrutinized.

Because of this tradition, our thoughts on education become narrow and shallow, and whenever our society is engulfed in fundamental political and economic changes we become confused, and our schools react slowly and belatedly. The result is that schools become, for a while, estranged from the mainstream dynamics of society.

Good schools will quickly recover from this alienation, but less fortunate schools will continue for a time to exist as anomalous institutions within a modernizing society.

A group of educators asked me recently to joint them in discussing the problem of enabling education in Indonesia to deal with the changes that will be brought about by free trade agreements.

What can we do now in order to prepare the young generation for when free trade is really implemented in 2020 and competition is expected to become more ruthless?

This is, in my opinion, a question that must be addressed seriously. In view of questions like this, I think it is high time we redefine our perceptions of education.

If we want to have a rigorous and resilient system of education, capable of responding to challenges brought about by global changes, we must broaden our perception of education. We must give our education a broader and deeper base.

The writer is an observer of social and political affairs.