Sri Mulyani wants to be a kindergarten teacher

Sri Mulyani wants to be a kindergarten teacher

By T. Sima Gunawan

JAKARTA (JP): Economist Sri Mulyani, known for her bold
statements and sharp analyses, can sometimes be a witch or a
cruel step mother.

If you don't believe it, you'd better ask her children,
Dewinta, 10, Adwin, 7, or Lukman, 3, with whom Mulyani often acts
out the famous tale of Hans and Gretel, not in a theater
building, but in their house in Bintaro, on the outskirts of
Jakarta.

"I like perform drama with my children," said Mulyani, who
also loves singing and gardening. "I really love children. I want
to be a kindergarten teacher one day."

But she is not a kindergarten teacher. She teaches at the
graduate program of the University of Indonesia's School of
Economics, and heads the university's Institute of Economic and
Social Studies. In fact, she does not have much time to play with
her children, especially as the country is still battling against
the prolonged economic crisis, which started in July 1997.

Due to her easy accessibility, many people contact Mulyani and
invite her to talk. She almost always accommodates the
invitations, that is until about a year ago.

"My children started to complain. When my eldest child saw me
on TV, she would complain: 'Isn't there any other economist who
could talk and replace you?' She was very angry.

"So we talked and made an agreement. She promised to study
hard and be a good girl and I promised to reduce my activities in
the evening. I would try to get home by 8 p.m. If I am not home
at that time, I have to tell her my whereabouts."

Born in 1962, Mulyani graduated from the School of Economics
at the University of Indonesia (UI) in 1986. Two years later she
married Tony Sumartono who works at the Export Development Board.
The same year she went to the University of Illinois and returned
home in 1992 with her Ph.D. degree.

At 5 p.m., when all her staff had left for the day and during
a break in her hectic schedule, she met The Jakarta Post at her
office on UI's campus compound on Jl. Salemba, Central Jakarta.
Later in the evening she had an appointment with State Minister
of National Development Planning Boediono.

Below is an excerpt from the interview:

Question: It seems that you are very busy with your work but
you are also close to your family. How do you juggle both aspects
of your life?

Answer: I try to balance the attention I give to my family so
that we are like other normal families. I try to equal the time I
give to my job and to my family.

I have a secretary at home who works out my schedule, deals
with e-mails, document filing and so on.

I am lucky because my brother also lives in the neighborhood
and he has kids who are about my children's age. Basically, my
children have a 'step mother' who is their auntie and my sister-
in-law.

My extended family helps a lot. My mother-in-law often shops
for our monthly needs. So, actually, I don't do much housework. I
only play with the children and spend time with my husband.

Q: Some women could not build a career outside the house because
they have to take care of their family...

A: If a woman could not build her career because she had to
manage the household, I think that idea should be reviewed,
especially in Indonesia where labor costs are relatively cheap.
This is about time management. But I think that some tasks can
not be delegated to housemaids, like educating the children.

Housemaids are downstream workers, they do the hard work. They
help with the hardware, while we have to take care of the
software, the system, the soul of the household.

Q: Why did you want to be an economist?

A: Actually, I wanted to be a teacher. When I was in senior high
school I had an English teacher who was very smart, beautiful and
neatly-dressed. I liked English, I liked her and I wanted to be a
role model like her.

Since I was in junior high, I have read books on psychology
provided by my mother, who is a psychologist. Both my parents are
lecturers and professors at the Semarang Teachers' Training
Institute (which is now a university). They have 10 children, I
am the seventh.

In high school, I majored in natural sciences, but when I
graduated, I did not want to continue with it. I enrolled in the
School of Economics, which, I think, is the hardest of the social
sciences. I was not serious about it, but I was accepted. And I
was not wrong. I enjoy economics.

Economic science has much to do with psychology, it deals with
human behavior, but in economics, it is about the behavior of
achieving welfare.

Q: How big is the role of your family in shaping your
personality?

A: I was raised in a Javanese family with a strong Javanese
culture, but in a Western-style education and environment. My
parents were democratic, open and transparent. They taught the
children to talk. When we had breakfast, lunch and dinner we
discussed many things, including politics.

Q: What are the activities of the Institute of Economic and
Social Assessment?

A: It is a research and education institution. We receive a lot
of research orders, especially those dealing with the analysis of
policies, and we produce policy recommendations, we deal a lot
with the National Development Planning Board, the Ministry of
Trade and Industry, the Finance Ministry and Bank Indonesia.

Our training center mostly deals with finance and development
planning.

We have many partners from the government, but we have become
more and more independent.

Recently we also dealt with multilateral institutions like ADB
(Asian Development Bank).

Q: It seems that in Indonesia research is not considered
important...

A: Absolutely true. In government institutions, the research and
development agency conducts research only to generate funds from
the state budget. Only a small amount of research conducted gets
an input into the process of policy making, and that started to
happen only recently.

The general view is that research is not important.
Researchers are not respected here and the results of their
research is generally not used.

Q: How could people have such a view?

A: Maybe because for Indonesians, the process is not important.
What is important is the outcome. They do not give room for jobs
that require a lot of time to think and to design. And the result
is what we are now facing. There are many policies which are made
without coordination, made in wrong sequences, because all of
them are based on ad hoc decisions, not based on research, even
though almost all government institutions have a research and
development department.

I think it has much to do with the attitude, 'I know that, you
don't need to carry out any research.' Such an attitude prevails
especially among government officials.

Q: How about the private sector?

A: We all have the same problems. We need a certain level of
education (to be able to respect research). Even at school, the
process (of learning) is not respected... the students cheat and
bribe the teachers.

In Indonesia we have 200 million people. About 70 million are
of school age. The government has a mass education policy,
everything is the same, ignore the local content... everybody
has to go to school but the quality is ignored.

Q: Teachers of state schools are poorly paid. How about the
lecturers?

A: Lecturers don't make much money. The standard of payment is
marginal, especially in Jakarta where commuter costs are high.
Some big universities have research institutes which can provide
income for them. In other places (not in UI's School of
Economics), there are lecturers who neglect the students because
they are too busy with side jobs. There are others who teach in
many places to make money. They sacrifice the quality of
education.

Q: Most experts, like yourself, graduate from overseas
universities...

A: We really have a lack of education institutions at graduate
level. There are some local institutions which offer graduate
programs, but many of them are of poor quality. Unfortunately,
many Indonesians are crazy about titles. Many government
officials buy titles for job promotion.

Q: How about the graduate program at your school here, do you
dare to compare it with those abroad?

A: To some extent, yes, but not in the ratio of lecturer and
students and not in relation to the library. In this area, we
really have a lot of catching up to do.

Q: What was the best academic experience you had while studying
abroad?

A: The lecturers dedicated their time fully to the students. The
quality of lecturing and the materials were well prepared. They
had clear office hours.

Q: About the new government, which will be heterogeneous. They
might need a lot of time to make decisions while in this time of
crisis we need to work fast...

A: I don't think that their differences would hamper in making
fast decisions. If the process takes a bit longer, that's fine.
This is part of the learning process of a nation.

This country has to learn that we are in an unfortunate
situation, which is inevitable in our life as a nation. It can be
said that it is all our fault because we have not done our
homework step by step. Now it is due all at the same time. The
homework is economic, political, social, and legal.

Q: When will the economic recover?

A: If it can recover in five years, that's good enough.

Q: We need professionals to help with the recovery. But many of
them, especially the Chinese Indonesians, have reportedly left
the country because they think it is not safe here...

A: Many have left, not only the Chinese, but also native
Indonesians. It is a market mechanism. We are unhappy, but this
is part of the (learning) process. To some extent, it is
inevitable, this is the cost of the learning process. But I am
still optimistic because there are still many others who have the
idealism and still want to contribute.