Redefining moral education a must

Redefining moral education a must

By A. Chaedar Alwasilah

BANDUNG (JP): The prolonged social and political unrest
blighting the nation is believed to be the fruit of bureaucratic
mismanagement in almost all sectors of governance. The acronym
KKN -- that stands for collusion, corruption, and nepotism -- has
suddenly surfaced everywhere and become everybody's parlance to
warn, alert, remind, and even charge others, especially suspect
officials.

Language theorists hold that newly coined vocabulary in a
political discourse is a sound representation of temporary
culture. Language reveals recurring themes and favored ways of
describing and interpreting the world. Our language tends to
repeat certain ways of seeing phenomena, and thereby it both
constructs and confirms our values and our belief systems.

The undaunted mass media reporting KKN issues and public
protesting is indeed indicative of changes in contemporary
cultural patterns, which have significant ripple effects
throughout society. In the last three months we have witnessed
public enthusiasm for reading newspapers -- an effective mode of
political education.

We are reminded of recent reports by international independent
agencies that Indonesia is indeed one of the world's most corrupt
and inefficient countries. In the eye of the reformists, the New
Order regime was the architect of the corruption, collusion, and
nepotism.

In the current state of social chaos it is easy for everyone
to point fingers at others. Politicians are impostors,
bureaucrats are liars, members of the Armed Forces are wicked
collaborators and abductors, tycoons are hoarders, and educators
have failed to make people educated and cultured.

Schools and colleges are now coming under intense pressure and
are subject to strong public criticism. In the last three decades
they have failed to prepare bureaucrats who are professional and
demonstrate moral responsibility.

How can we heal the scars of the past when the existing
educational system is still maintained and the bureaucracy which
caused the damage still holds sway over our lives? The solution
seems to be educational reform to prepare professional and
responsible bureaucrats, so that the same failure will never be
repeated. The link-and-match orientation, which was popular
during Minister of Education and Culture Wardiman Djojonegoro's
administration, and P4 Pancasila state ideology indoctrination
have resulted in numerous grubby practices in society, the most
conspicuous of which are:

First, most people, especially youths, are so fascinated by
industrialism that they have felt forced to migrate to big
cities, especially in Java. Urbanization has had its negative
consequences: agriculture is neglected in favor of industry,
which turns out to be fragile as the country has not established
strong foundations for it.

The link-and-match approach to education is not only
irrelevant to the present state of Indonesian society, but it
also has seriously alienated the country's youth from
agriculture, which should in fact be a genuine and natural career
for much of the population.

This qualitative maladjustment is a consequence of
transplanting an educational model from an industrialized to the
Indonesian context that grotesquely misfits the actual local
needs, circumstances, and resources. It is also a consequence of
the political interference in the education sector.

Second, the New Order regime was notorious for its enforced
one-sided interpretations of the state ideology. There was
virtually no room for individual interpretation because
alternative interpretations were perceived as threats to the
status quo. The ruling regime in other words implicitly declared
itself as the only source of wisdom and truth.

The two practices were rampant in the last regime and
demonstrate a bizarre contradiction. Inherent in the concept of
industrialization is the ability to think critically, act
creatively, and function efficiently in all walks of life. But
here is the rub; through the P4 program (government-sponsored
propagation of the state ideology), the people have
systematically been made uncritical, cowardly, and dependent. In
short, our education has been tailored to cultivating obedience
rather than creativity and independence.

As obedience has been perceived as of greater importance than
creativity, this kind of obedience has led to hypocrisy and
crimes among bureaucrats. Corruption, collusion, and nepotism are
prevalent at all levels of the bureaucracy. The pronouncement of
Sapta Prasetya KORPRI (civil servants' seven statements of
allegiance) in the ceremony on the 17th of each month has been a
ritual lip service in the bureaucracy. It is high time to
question the relevance of this monthly ceremony, especially in
university circles.

From all this we learn that moral education should be
redefined so as to heal the ills of society and the bureaucracy
in particular. If KKN continues at its current level, it could
reach such a stage that the whole moral establishment would be in
jeopardy.

Public moral education should manifest itself in all
professions and layers of society, from school children to
bureaucrats and professionals. Furthermore, we notice that
violence, brawling, drugs, ecstasy, and alcoholism are entering
our schools, where vicious teenagers can vitiate any attempt by
teachers to control and educate them. This alone proves that some
form of compulsory moral education is needed urgently.

The failures of education as highlighted above should remind
educators of the following:

* We are alerted to the aridity of education which is purely
practical and scientific. Education accordingly should strike the
balance between rational and moral dimensions. National
development will never succeed in a moral vacuum.

* Children should not be educated for work alone, their
personal growth in society should also be cultivated.

* Moral education must not only eradicate corruption,
collusion, and nepotism, but also cultivate personalities who
can enjoy the fruits of our culture to the full.

* General education should establish moral reasoning for
national development. Education is not simply learning to do this
or that more proficiently. It is about acquiring maturity for
understanding a human condition in which the facts of life are
continuously illuminated by moral reasoning.

The education that the nation badly needs now is one that
develops morally mature people who are autonomous, rational,
altruistic and responsible for society and for themselves.

When preconditions of morality, such as freedom of the press,
critical thinking and creativity, have been established, the
four above traits will emerge not only as empirically observed
facts but also as logically necessary consequences.

The writer is a lecturer at the Teacher Training Institute in
Bandung, West Java.

Window A: In the current state of social chaos it is easy for
everyone to point fingers at others. Politicians are impostors,
bureaucrats are liars, members of the Armed Forces are wicked
collaborators and abductors, tycoons are hoarders, and educators
have failed to make people educated and cultured.

Window B: The link-and-match approach to education is not only
irrelevant to the present state of Indonesian society, but it
also has seriously alienated the country's youth from
agriculture, which should in fact be a genuine and natural career
for much of the population.