Thoughts for educationists

The government kicked off yesterday the nine-year compulsory education program after successfully implementing the similar six-year program during the last 10 years. The success story is really but a significant progress for a developing country which is trying hard to modernize itself.

However, a closer look into our education program shows that the government for the 1994/95 budget can only afford to allocate 4.38 percent of its expenditure for the education sector. The figure is still too small for Indonesia which has to catch up so many things in the education field. Those involved in improving the quality of the national education will sure face a lot of difficulties with the budget limitation.

Like during the last decade, Indonesian's current budget for education might still be the lowest among ASEAN countries, but as a developing nation we also have to thank God Almighty that the government has been able to increase it for the current Five- Year National Development Plan -- which started last month -- by 37.93 percent compared to the previous five-year program. Within the next five years the government will spend Rp 20.3 trillion (US$9,615 million) or Rp 4.06 trillion every year.

The newly-introduced compulsory education program will hopefully increase the number of children attending the first nine-year education program and reduce the number of those who escape it by reason that their parents need their help to make the ends meet.

Since not all the graduates of the nine-year education will afford to further their studies until college level what the government has to do is perhaps to increase the number of vocational trainings and re-evaluate whether in the past these trainings have made the graduates easier in their efforts to find jobs. There are now 3,478 vocational schools in Indonesia compared to 8.000 general schools but many of the 2.5 million young men who go to the job market every year are without skill as almost all of those sent abroad are unskilled labors like maid servants.

However, the public is also to blame for the rapid increase of unemployment because many parents -- for the sake of prestige -- want their children enroll into colleges without taking into consideration whether the major their children will take will help them find a job. This is because a university degree represents a status symbol to many Indonesians and the trend has the root in the vestige of the old feudal agrarian society which is still popular here.

And last but not least, the authorities should also make a survey on the opinion of the parents, especially of the primary school children, to get to know whether several subjects have not imposed as burden to their children and themselves. Many of them have complained that subjects like the one with ideological load such as the History of the Nation's Struggle (PSPB) needed to be reviewed. The need has been voiced by the then minister of education Fuad Hassan in 1986 and repeated by other educational experts two years ago. But the complaints are still heard. They said that due to the fact that there are so many subjects within limited hours the less important of them have surely victimized the more important ones while other countries have focussed on technology.

Today's curriculum will definitely decide what kind of this nation ours will be in the future.