Poor education, poor future
Poor education, poor future
By Nirwan Idrus
JAKARTA (JP): Performance of Indonesian students has been
front-page news. Ranking fifth from the bottom in maths and
seventh from the bottom in science at the Third International
Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) survey is nothing to write
home about. Mochtar Buchori in an interview with The Jakarta Post
has given a no-nonsense assessment.
The Post editorial also reiterated quite a number of points
that have been said by others over the last two or so years.
However none of the things said in the media about Indonesian
education appears to have been read by anybody in the Ministry of
National Education.
One is increasingly convinced that neither the minister nor
his officials are concerned about the portfolio they are in
charge of. The reader would note that the comments from the
minister on the poor show of Indonesian students in maths and
science, was only that the education budget has been increased by
a couple of percent. Another evidence of his missing the point.
As the editorial showed, money is only one of the ingredients
for a system, but certainly is not a sufficient condition. We
also all know what happens to money going into government
departments. It is no secret that only a small percentage finally
goes to the deserved recipients. Thus, an increase in budget does
not guarantee any improvement of the system or disbursement to
the people who need them.
If we look back at the TIMSS results, we must not forget that
Singapore did not get to where it is, simply by lazying around
and hoping things will go the way one wants them to.
The government gives the lead, the ministry prepares the way,
and the people are informed and involved in all the hard work
that must be carried out.
It is all hard work. There must be a good and realistic
vision, mission and plan, plus a workable and working monitoring
and review system -- all the things that appear to be absent from
our education system, especially the latter.
An engineering professor from the Bandung Institute of
Technology once said that Indonesian engineers are actually
second-class citizens in their own country. Engineers from
neighboring countries such as the Philippines, Malaysia and even
Bangladesh occupy more senior positions in Indonesia than local
engineers with similar qualifications.
Note that without being ethnically insensitive, the above
comparison was only against neighboring countries in Asia. By
extrapolation, one can imagine what sort of position our
engineers would occupy when compared to engineers from developed
countries (which now include Singapore!).
There has also been an incessant series of complaints, from
professors in universities overseas who have had to supervise
Indonesian postgraduate students, ranging from the students'
inability to use the library to failure to understand basic
concepts.
When one is told that a lot of these postgraduate students are
lecturers in Indonesian state universities, one inevitably would
ask the question of what quality of teaching do these people
provide their students at their universities?
Herein lies a further enigma. It is the experience of many
people that many faculty staff at state universities do not spend
their time at their universities commensurate with their
appointments. Many are missing from their lectures and are
replaced by senior students.
Many have three or four other full-time positions elsewhere in
various "projects". Consequently they do not put any full time
effort to any of their multiple jobs. The excuse given has always
been that their salaries are not enough to feed them and their
families.
But how do they explain that a lot of these "poor" lecturers
drive the latest models of Mercedeses, BMWs and Peugeots?
No wonder our graduates are second-class citizens in their own
country!
What is also tragic of course, is the quality of consultation
given by these graduates and their teachers. In addition to the
inadequate time they have because they have four or five full-
time jobs, quite of great concern also is their practical
industrial experience or lack thereof. This in turn contributes
to the poor quality of their advice to the industry that consults
them. The impact on the industry will obviously be negative.
These industries will then become second-class citizens again
just like our graduates.
A poor education system will produce poor results in all
facets of the country's endeavor. One can find other examples as
well, all of which point to the same debilitating direction for
the country. Obviously, this is not a new discovery.
Nobody is saying that the problem is easy to resolve. But we
have cracked through the New Order eggshell now for almost four
years, long enough time for education ministers and the
bureaucracy to pull their fingers out and do something. Four
years is the average period for a university student to graduate.
Hence, since the "reform movement" we have already produced or
already about to produce one generation of graduates. Should we
wait for another lost generation of graduates or more before the
Ministry of National Education starts to do something?
When one asks the type of question above, the retort is
always, "If you're so smart, tell us what should be done".
Mochtar Buchori has given more than a hint, in addition to this
writer's earlier articles.
The poor showing of Indonesian students at TIMSS is only a
small tip of a dinosaur-like iceberg. It is a symptom of a
chronic and cancerous malady and a serious indictment of our
education system. Even the previous minister of education, Juwono
Sudarsono, as long ago as August 1999, said that Indonesia's
education system needs a revolution. Is anybody listening?
The writer is an international higher education quality
consultant, currently president / executive director of IPMI
Graduate School of Business in Jakarta (nirwan@ipmimba.ac.id).