Political influence in education must be reduced

Tantri Yuliandini, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

From the time of the Dutch colonial rule to today's reform movement, education in Indonesia has never been free from the entanglements of the country's politics.

Indeed, politics has been so entrenched in the everyday lives of the people that it is impossible to separate it from education, Arief Rachman, an education expert, said.

"There is nothing in Indonesia that can be separated from politics, including education. This is really the concept of (people with) vested interests," he told The Jakarta Post.

It was in the interest of the Dutch government that education for Indonesians was limited to an elite few, for example.

Even long after the ethical movement in 1901 to improve the welfare of the people in the Dutch colonies, education for indigenous Indonesians was aimed at maintaining the Dutch's rule in the country.

According to education observer Henry Alexis Rudolf Tilaar in his book 50 Tahun Pembangunan Pendidikan Nasional, 1945-1995 (50 years of national education development, 1945-1995), education during the colonial period put great importance on fluency in the Dutch language and all things related to the Netherlands, in order to invoke sympathy and quell nationalistic inclinations.

"So, for example, in geography lessons, students were taught to memorize the names of small cities and canals in the Netherlands. The curriculum was to produce in people a conquered mentality without (their own) identity," he said in his book.

And any type of educational activities aimed at the general public were scrutinized by the Politieke Inlichtingen Dienst (PID), the Dutch secret police, who were quick to squash nationalistic movements, Tilaar said.

However, education -- no matter how little -- made a chink in the wall of Dutch repression, and soon an elite group of educated Indonesian nationalists formed.

Recognizing that education could become an effective tool to develop feelings of unity and nationalism, and eventually of independence, this group established schools for a national education.

According to Tilaar, Ki Hadjar Dewantara, known as the father of Indonesia's national education system, united national education with the national movement with the establishment of his Taman Siswa (student garden) school in 1922.

The father of the national awakening, Wahidin Sudirohusodo, once said, "Only by lots of studying can a person move forward and free himself from a situation of utter repression."

Those striving for national unity experienced a minor breakthrough when the Japanese took over the country in late 1941.

Tilaar said that the Japanese's effort to eradicate all Dutch influence, including its language, resulted in the widespread use of Bahasa Indonesia, which was used as a bridge to the introduction of the Japanese language.

The Japanese also transformed the education system to serve their needs in the South Asian war. Thus, schools during the Japanese occupation taught the importance of love for country -- illustrated in the flying of the Japanese flag and the singing of the Japanese national anthem every morning -- and introduced military exercises.

After the country won its independence in 1945, education was used by the new Indonesian government as a powerful tool to evoke feelings of political unity, Tilaar said.

"It was an era when the indoctrination method was a tool to achieve a certain political aim," he said in his book.

In the late 1950s, for example, the aim was to ensure that president Sukarno's political manifesto was accepted by all Indonesians.

Then came the New Order regime of Soeharto, who used education as a means to instill obedience to those in power.

According to sociologist Ignas Kleden, education during the New Order regime was "exceedingly instrumental in character and almost without emancipatory effects".

He said that exercises at schools focused more on obedience to authority, to the teacher and school regulations, which was another way of instilling obedience to the state and the ruler. In short, education was a tool to keep Soeharto on the throne.

"Education that frees the person from his narrow environment, one that opens up new horizons, that gives inspiration, or one that can make a person think for himself, make his own decisions, almost never has had a place ... in our national education," Ignas said in a paper published in the Kompas daily late last year.

He gave as an example the wide use of multiple choice exams in schools, which according to him does not allow students to think or have a different opinion from the answers already given on the tests, which he called a "standardization of answers".

"Standardized answers to examinations is only a derivative of the regimentation of education and teaching, resulting from a uniformity of politics," he said.

Once again, politics cannot be wholly separated from national education, but to what extent can we tolerate the dabbling of it in our schools?

According to Arief Rachman, although politics can never be erased completely from education, there should be a form of control over its influence so that education is no longer merely a political tool.

"There must be regulations drawn up by an independent body to control (political influence) ... every school should have its own board of education," he said, explaining that the boards would comprise concerned parents and people from the community.

"We have to understand that politics will always play a part in our education, we have to tolerate that. On the other hand, education needs to be free enough and independent enough so politics cannot abuse it," Arief added.