Superschools

Superschools

I wish to draw a crucial link between three articles published
in The Jakarta Post (Jan. 26 and Jan. 27, 1996): Providing
superschools for all by John Phillips, and Mochtar Buchori's
Viewpoint: Where do we go with a rigid school curriculum?; and a
related article, Decline in human resources quality worries
government by Hermawan Sulistyo.

Mochtar Buchori reiterates the complaints of (state education
system) teachers, i.e. "the teaching profession has been degraded
into a job without sufficient financial remuneration, without
social status and without self-respect. It has become a job
fitting only for third rate minds." Since the entire state
educational system is, in fact, part of the state bureaucracy,
the same point is made by Sulistyo when he states that "the civil
service now attracts only the least talented job seekers". Given
this scenario, is there hope for much improvement in the
educational system?

Phillips in his article concludes that "superschools are
readily available and relatively inexpensive," and then adds that
providing them "means altering the entire educational system..."
The poor quality of the state educational system is a major cause
of the emergence of superschools. Sulistyo clearly and very
boldly states why we should, unfortunately, have little hope for
major improvement in the state educational system in the near
future.

Despite Phillips' optimism, I think it is clear that the state
cannot presently provide superschools to all. What it can do,
however, is provide incentives to superschools (if not financial,
at least in terms of reduced bureaucracy and increased freedom
concerning curriculum and employment of foreigners).
Superschools, aside from educating many Indonesians, provide
working examples to the state system and a trickle-down effect is
inevitable. There are many ways to facilitate the trickling-down;
for example inter-school exchange visits by teachers would
increase awareness of both parties of the gap in quality of
education.

There should be no question about this gap. Studies in
developing countries, including Colombia, the Dominican Republic,
the Philippines, Tanzania and Thailand, conclude that "when
student background and sample selection biases are held constant,
students in private schools outperform students in public schools
on verbal and mathematics achievement tests." (Reference: E.
Jimenez, M.E. Lockheed and V. Paquco: The relative efficiency of
private and public schools in developing countries. The World
Bank Research Observer 6(2):205-218, 1991).

NINA STOLTZ

Bogor, West Java