The spirit behind Education Day

By Mochtar Buchori

JAKARTA (JP): Today, educationists in Indonesia commemorate National Education Day. To the younger generation, the words "national education" might convey nothing special.

To them this term is just another tag for the word "national", like "national anthem", "national flag", "national soccer team", "national holiday", "national commissions", and so on. The youngsters might therefore ask: What is so special about national education, and what is really being commemorated?

To older Indonesians, however, this term has a special meaning. The expression "national education" was coined by educational pioneers before World War II to express a political concept. National education was popularized in the early 1920s to convey a political commitment. Indonesian educators used this political concept to reject the educational system created by the Dutch colonial government. National education was an alternative to colonial education.

National education was not just a theoretical concept, it was put into practice by founding national schools to instill strong nationalism in Indonesia's youth. Through these schools students were prepared to live as Indonesians, and not as colonial subjects. National education was a integral part of the struggle to achieve political independence.

Not surprisingly, the colonial government considered national education politically dangerous. It then tried to paralyze national schools by issuing a regulation to close the schools it called "wilde schoolen" (wild schools).

The regulation, called "toezicht ordonantie", was an ordinance to oversee unsubsidized private schools, and was decreed by Governor General Kiewit de Jonge and validated on Oct. 1, 1932.

The resistance initiated and launched by the Ki Hajar Dewantara of the Taman Siswa organization was able to freeze this suppressive measure in 1933. The national schools were then politically safe, making their development possible.

To express gratitude to these educational pioneers, National Education Day was established. Remembering them might help recapture their fighting and pioneering spirit, and make it part of the present educational system.

To many Indonesians, National Education Day evokes the memory of the late Ki Hajar Dewantara, who founded the Taman Siswa educational organization on July 3, 1922.

Taman Siswa schools educated their students to become Indonesians who are "free in their spirit, free in their thinking, and free in their labor." Pupils were prepared to be able to live as free persons in their own environment.

It was imperative that students knew first and foremost their own cultural heritage and environment, and not that of the Dutch. Even though modern knowledge, as a product of Western civilization, was from the very beginning an essential part of its educational program, it was always taught in a context that was distinctly indigenous -- Javanese at that time.

It was in this particular respect that Taman Siswa schools differed significantly from colonial schools, and also from private schools whose very existence depended on consent and support from the colonial government.

The basic principle of Taman Siswa was not to accept any financial aid from the colonial government. The reasoning behind this policy was that the education of Indonesian children is the responsibility of the Indonesian people, and that the society must do its utmost to shoulder this burden. Accepting financial support from the colonial government would curtail the freedom to develop an educational program entirely free from the meddling of the colonial government.

The founding of Taman Siswa schools cannot be dissociated from the criticism of Ki Hajar Dewantara against the philosophy and practice of the colonial schools. Ki Hajar Dewantara's objections were that the colonial schools were too elitist. Only a fraction of Indonesia's youth could benefit from these colonial schools. The majority of Indonesia's youth were left ignorant.

The colonial education program taught Indonesian pupils about European, especially Dutch, society and civilization, but left them ignorant of their own cultural heritage, problems and potential. In some cases Indonesian pupils became alienated from their own social and cultural environment because of this colonial education. In the worst case they became unable to speak their own language.

This cultural and social alienation made Indonesian pupils insensitive to the suffering of the less-fortunate Indonesian people, and also indifferent toward the ongoing social, economic and political struggle.

Teaching these values to a large portion of the Indonesian youth would certainly have gradually eroded any aspirations of becoming an independent nation.

Independence could only be sustained if youngsters are provided with national education. The development of national schools with programs tailored to the needs of a struggling society became a political imperative.

National education survived all the obstructive measures laid down by the colonial government. This idea was adopted by other Indonesian schools which initially cooperated with the colonial government. They gradually became more radical, and together with Taman Siswa they became an inseparable part of the national movement toward independence.

These national schools later became the embryo of the national education that we have today. The strength and viability of this embryo was tested twice during the Japanese occupation, and during the battles for independence between 1945 and 1949.

As we pay tribute to the educational pioneers, it would be wise to ask ourselves the meaning of "national education" today.

What should be the relationship between national education and education for participation in international life? How can we revitalize our national education so that it becomes a part of the national cultural force striving toward a more dignified existence amid the family of modern, globalized nations?

There is a myriad of other questions that we have to ponder, but the central question among them is, I think, the one about revitalizing our educational system in order to regain the place national education once occupied within the nation. It may be a good idea if we followed Ki Hajar Dewantara's example and thought and acted as "pioneers in the field of politics, education and culture."

Window: These national schools later became the embryo of the national education that we have today.