RI trails behind Thailand and Vietnam in education

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.