Relationship between experts and bureaucracy

Mochtar Buchori, Jakarta

I always feel embarrassed when someone calls me an educational expert. More embarrassing still is when someone invites me to sit next to a former minister of education at a gathering or reception: "Hello, thank you for coming. Please meet Bapak X, our former minister of education. Since you are also an expert in education, I am sure you two will have an engrossing discussion!"

Then he or she leaves to greet other guests.

In the mind of such people, a Cabinet post makes you an expert. It is flattering to be considered a person as important as a former minister, and I guess this gesture is well-intended. But somehow, I do not really feel comfortable with this kind of treatment, for two reasons.

First, I do not feel myself an expert. And even if I were, I do not think the public considers experts as people of equal importance as Cabinet ministers, former or otherwise. Some people may indeed think that both are important people, but as far as the public is concerned, these two personalities are important for different reasons.

And second, while experts may feel themselves as important as ministers, I do not think ministers and high-ranking bureaucrats harbor the same feeling toward experts.

In regards the first reason, it is very difficult nowadays to be an all-encompassing expert in education. That is, if we use the word "expert" in the right sense, i.e., to denote "a person with a high degree of skill in or knowledge of a certain subject".

According to Giocomo Leopardi (1798 -- 1837), an Italian essayist and poet, such a person never compares himself or herself to other experts, but with the discipline they are pursuing. As such, they will assume an increasingly lower posture the more excellent they become.

It must be noted in this regard that nowadays, the field of education is so vast and so varied that a person can at best become an expert in only one aspect. These days, feeling oneself an expert who can cover the entire scope of education is self- deceiving.

To insist that one is knowledgeable about every area within the broad educational spectrum is appertaining oneself to the wrong kind of experts, which Lord Salisbury once described as people who "require to have their strong wine diluted by a very large admixture of insipid common sense". These are experts -- again according to Lord Salisbury -- who should never be trusted.

As is so often the case, it seems difficult for this kind of expert to understand one another. Each one of them speaks their own lingo, and refuses to ever use common modes of expression.

Quite recently, for example, I was invited to a meeting attended by seven "experts" in education. The purpose of the discussion was to find a commonsensical explanation as to why our education system had been declining steadily, falling behind those of our neighbors -- Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and even Vietnam -- and to formulate eventually how it could be taken out of its present doldrums.

We were each requested to present our individual views on a specific problem area. When the seven of us finished our presentations and we were asked to formulate our recommendations on how this system could be rejuvenated and reinvigorated, the discussion went astray: Every one of us seven seemed so deeply anchored to our perceptions that our viewpoints never crossed.

What happened was, I guess, each of us was blinded by our own egos as experts that we were unable to recognize and explore areas of thinking that were adjacent to ours. Hence, a long and unproductive discussion ensued that went on for five hours -- but the conversation that emerged seemed more a collection of seven separate monologues rather than a single dialogue among seven people.

If communication among experts is not easy, communication between experts and the bureaucracy is more complicated. In this case, the obstacles that make smooth communication and productive discussion difficult are twofold, i.e., one comes from the ego factor, and another comes from the environment factor.

As a rule, it is safe to say that ministers and bureaucrats tend to look upon themselves as very, very, important people -- just like experts with established reputations. Their egos are as strong as -- if not stronger than -- those of the experts, and they guard these very jealously. In most cases, they feel more important than the best-ranking experts, domestic or foreign.

They have their valid reasons to feel this way. In their eyes, experts are familiar primarily with the "theoretical" or "abstract and systematized" world, not with the "real" world, which is never very systematic. In addition, in their daily lives, they constantly face real problems and real challenges.

On this basis, ministers and bureaucrats tend to think that when it comes to solving real problems in the field, no one else is better prepared than they. Here, it is they that really matter; but when it comes to explaining why things are the way they are, it is the experts who mostly make sense.

The important question for the public in this regard is: "Which matters most in life -- having the problems solved, albeit imperfectly, or having them perfectly explained?"

The answer to this question makes ministers and bureaucrats appear more important than experts in the public's eyes.

In addition to this ego competition is still another competition, i.e., competition between two modes of perceiving the situation in the field. Ministers are basically politicians mandated to manage a big system, assisted by a big bureaucracy. In this position, they have to perceive conditions within their field in a macro manner, and cannot afford to be absorbed by details that exist in their administrative territory.

Against this background, it is fairly easy to understand that a minister -- even if he or she was an expert before they were appointed to a Cabinet post -- will soon think like a politician.

Any Cabinet minister who persists in talking like an expert will be considered an eccentric. For this reason, any expert who has served as a Cabinet minister in Indonesia has lost much of his or her expertise after spending one term in office.

The writer is a former rector of IKIP Muhammadiyah, Jakarta, and has a Ph.D. in education from Harvard University.