'Ours is surely a sick nation'

'Ours is surely a sick nation'

Rachmad Bahari, Institute for Policy and Community Development Studies
(IPCOS), Jakarta

The school supposed set up to train students to become skilled
public servants has turned out to employ primitive "educational"
methods to teach younger students how to respect their seniors.
Some students of the now infamous Public Administration Institute
(STPDN) were reportedly still being beaten even after the recent
exposure and uproar over violence at the college.

Building respect for seniors and class peers has been a
debatable issue since colonial times. Another one of great
significance during the Dutch colonial times was prioritizing of
heredity in the recruitment of "natives" for government
positions.

Formally educated native candidates for government positions
considered inhuman the implementation of the seniority principle
through apprenticeship. A candidate with a higher educational
level than that of his superior had to respect this superior, and
had to sit on the floor in front of the regent.

The problems related to institutionalized seniority and
respect continued during the Japanese occupation. Graduates of
OSVIA (the training school for indigenous officials) and MOSVIA
(the secondary training school for indigenous officials) had to
pay respects to senior government officials -- yet the indigenous
bureaucracy from regents downward were mere lackeys of the
administration, made up of Dutch and other Europeans.

Today, this same problem has surfaced at STPDN in a more
primitive and disgusting manner as reflected in the physical
torture that younger students are subjected to.

It is more important to inculcate in all STPDN students the
obligation to respect the people that they will serve because it
is these taxpayers who have financed their studies. Respect for
seniors and superiors both at college and in the work place must
be based on professional ethics.

The "users" of STPDN are said to be for the government but it
is the people, the taxpayers, who finance the studies of STPDN
students through the state budget.

Training indigenous officials in the colonial times had an
entirely different purpose from training officials for an
independent nation. During colonial times, indigenous officials
were needed to expedite governmental operations at levels lower
than the domestic administration (Binnenlands Bestuur).

The establishment of STPDN and also the Institute for
Government Administration (IIP) was aimed at turning out
officials that could professionally serve the people.

Unfortunately nepotism in recruitment has again returned to
STPDN. Under colonial rule, only those from the "blue blood"
class were allowed to study advanced education for professional
skills such as medicine, law, engineering and administrative
studies.

Despite denials, it is public knowledge that officials are
allotted STPDN seats for their relatives. Of course, family
members of the home ministry are entitled to join STPDN as long
as he or she is meets the general requirements.

If STPDN and the provincial administrations that send students
to this college wish to convince the public that this unfair
recruitment practice is not true, the parents of students and
alumni as well as their entrance test results should be made
public. This is the only way to prove transparency in student
selection.

Reform should be introduced in government positions -- from
the central government down to regency/municipality
administrations -- by evaluating the officials concerned to find
out whether they consider their positions not only as their own
private property that need not be accounted for, but also as
something that they can bequeath to their descendants.

Unfair practices of nepotism have only worsened the teaching
and learning process at STPDN.

Taxpayers do not want to see their money spent on educational
activities that reek with violence. Following the death of Wahyu
Hidayat, an STPDN student, and the "coming out" of more "STPDN
victims" plans have been introduced to evaluate the college's
existence. The home ministry has said that it has long planned
the merger of STPDN and IIP.

Now that more light has been shed on the violence at STPDN, it
seems that the merging of both colleges, which are under the
auspices of the home ministry, should be sped up. The two
institutions must be comprehensively audited in respect of their
curricula, the qualifications of their teaching staff and their
financial conditions.

There have been suggestions that these two institutions should
be liquidated because their curricula is also found in schools of
social and political sciences at state and private universities.
A good example is the liquidation of the foreign ministry college
(ADLN).

The foreign ministry now recruits graduates from ordinary
universities, to be given further training that suits their
placement. The home ministry could use the foreign ministry as a
model in this respect.

What has been going on at STPDN must be immediately stopped.
There should no longer be any problems related to seniority and
respect, as was the case during the Dutch colonial times when
OSVIA and MOSVIA graduates were going to assume positions in the
colonial administration, especially now that Indonesia,
independent, sovereign and dignified, is not the lackey of a
colonial state.

The application of seniority and respect by means of vulgar
violence was not found even during the colonial times. Ours is
surely a sick nation.