RI trails behind Thailand and Vietnam in education

T. Sima Gunawan Contributor Jakarta

People have long complained about the high cost of education and the amount of money needed to send their children to university. They also feel concern about the quality of education because many students who graduate from university fail to find a job.

The quality of education has much to do with the quality of the students, even though there is no guarantee that a graduate of a reputable university will automatically get a good job because it also depends much on the students' aptitude and state of mind.

In general, the Indonesian education system has been widely questioned for its inability to produce qualified human resources. The 2002 UNDP human resources index in the year 2000 put Indonesia below Vietnam.

Indonesia also trailed behind China, the Philippines and Thailand. The index was based on three determining factors: knowledge, lifespan and standard of living.

Poor human resources contribute to the high unemployment rate in the country. More than nine million people are currently jobless and the number is expected to increase to some 10 million next year, meaning that the unemployment rate will be just under 10 percent.

Educational institutions are blamed for failing to produce qualified graduates who can meet the labor demands. These failings are expected to be overcome with the so-called competence-based curriculum that was introduced two years ago and is expected to be fully implemented in the year 2004, ready or not.

This curriculum will provide students with life skills and relevant knowledge that will help them in the real world.

The government has agreed to set aside 20 percent of the state budget for education, which is really good news. The bad news is: this has not been materialized.

New laws and regulations were also issued to improve the situation. The National Education Program for 2000-2004 stipulates, among other things, that the education system should prepare competent human resources in anticipation of globalization. It also underlines the need to improve the education system and to narrow the gap in the quality of education within the region.

It would be wrong to say that education merely aims to produce human resources in accordance with market demands. An article in the new law on the national education system says that educational subjects must consider: Improvement of faith, good conduct, intellectuality, talent, development needs, demands of the industrial sector, religion and national unity. Things look good on paper. But how about the implementation?

Legislator Mochtar Buchori, who is also an education expert, observed that so far the policy of higher education development put the emphasis on quantitative expansion with the establishment of many new universities. The problem is that this is not followed by an improvement in the quality of education, which results in the declining performance of education in general.

"The low quality of education has much to do with the lack of qualified lecturers," he said.

He underlined that the lack of qualified lecturers was one of the biggest problems facing many educational institutions here. It is no secret that many state university lecturers also teach at private universities, which usually pay better. A number of state university lecturers have even said that the low salaries forced them to work overseas in order to enable them "to develop their potential".

An expert staff at the Ministry of National Education, Ace Suryadi, once said better curriculums were needed to improve the quality of education, but even more important was the empowerment of educational institutions. As long as the institutions fail to properly manage educational activities, the quality of education will remain low. Therefore, lecturers must properly prepare before facing their students in order to facilitate the learning process.

This means that lecturers, no matter how good they are, need to an ample amount of time to prepare for classes. The way they teach is also important because they are expected not just to share knowledge, but also to stimulate the students to think, to realize their potential and to develop it.

Indonesia has about 2,000 institutes of higher learning, including universities and academies. Even though many of them have questionable quality and are money-oriented, there are some that are really good. Unfortunately, the qualifications of each institute are not clear, so students do not have the necessary information about the institutes prior to their enrollment.

Buchori called upon the National Accreditation Board to work harder to review the performance of the educational institutes here. Those that are not up to snuff must be closed down, he said.

"In fact, the problem of education is too big to be handled by the government alone. In other countries, companies and industries help with research funds and other donations. But here, they just don't care," he said.

He called upon companies here to lend a hand to help the education system. "Those conglomerates, instead of investing their money abroad, should chip in for the betterment of education."

It's not an easy problem and obviously the government alone will not be able to resolve it. Educational institutes should also look at themselves honestly, and if they do not have the proper resources to offer a quality education they should not force themselves to stay in operation.

They cannot rely on assistance from the government because the government is overwhelmed and has a limited capacity. The students, alumni and all stakeholders in institutes should also help, if not financially, at least by keeping an eye on their performance.