'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.