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).