Tilaar, a futurist who wants consistency in education policy

By Irawati Wisnumurti

JAKARTA (JP): H.A.R. Tilaar is a futurist and visionary to those who know him well, always looking ahead to study the future role of education.

Tilaar, also known as a man of critical opinions, puts priority on the need for consistency in the national education policy.

Teaching is in his blood. Born in Tondano, North Sulawesi, on June 16, 1932, he was the fourth of five children of a teacher. His grandfather was in the same profession.

"I find teaching is my life," he said.

He began teaching in 1952 after graduating with honors from Kweekschool Tomohon, a teaching school. "Since then I have taught in elementary through to university level," he says of his 45- year career.

He graduated from the University of Indonesia in 1961, gaining his master of science degree in education in 1967, and his doctorate degree two years later, both from the University of Indiana.

From 1971 until 1993, he served in the National Development Planning Board, starting as a member of the staff of experts before eventually serving as assistant to the State Minister of National Development Planning in Human Resource Development between 1987-1993.

He is also a tenured professor at the Jakarta Teachers Training College (IKIP). He still teaches part-time but indicated during the interview that he wants to retire soon.

None of his four children followed in his footsteps. "Actually, my daughter Wulan seem to show interest in my wife's profession," he said. His wife is Martha Tilaar, the cosmetics expert whose products are internationally known.

H.A.R. Tilaar has written many books on education, his most important is probably 50 Years Development of National Education 1945-1995. It was the first comprehensive book on Indonesian education written by an Indonesian.

His most recent work, published last month, is The Development of Human Resource in the Globalization Era, focusing on the vision, mission, and action program for education and training in preparation for the implementation of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in 2020.

Tilaar is passionate about the crucial role of education as the country prepares to face the free trade era.

"We have to prepare, or once all nations become borderless, we could lose in competing for jobs, as all the good ones will be taken by more competent people from abroad who come into our country."

"We consist of numerous ethnic groups, religions, cultures and dialects. Our Bhinekka Tunggal Ika principle, which means we are all different yet united, could face a huge challenge in the era of globalization. Otherwise, we could disintegrate. Just like Yugoslavia and former Soviet Union."

Gap

On the "link and match" program of industries and schools proposed by Minister of Education and Culture Wardiman Djojonegoro, he said there is a need to tailor education so that it meets the job world's needs, but there are problems in implementing it.

"There is a gap between the current educational system and the industrial level. Our school system is more or less in place, but the industry is still young, thus we need to focus on setting a structure that is school-based and training center-based," he said.

The system of another country cannot be applied blindly to Indonesia, he warned. "We cannot impose a dual system (that is suitable) for Germany to fit with our country. We as a nation have distinct historical experience and we have to tailor the system to fit us.

"There should be incentives to entice the industrial sector to participate in the dual system program of providing the formal education, complemented with practical training in a company at senior high school level," he said.

Wardiman's proposal should be considered carefully, he said. "In a link-and match program, we should not just link schools with industries, but we must know the needs of the society and try to meet those needs in linking them. Otherwise, we will graduate students who will become jobless because we are not meeting the current needs."

Budget

Tilaar is no fan of the prevalent rote method of learning in Indonesia. "We need to change the passive method of teaching, which tends to emphasize memorizing data. We need to increase the numbers of model schools," he says. He cited ones in Magelang (Taruna Nusantara Senior High School), Sumatra, Pontianak, as successful.

Tilaar said the actual percentage of GDP allocated for education is still low at about 3 percent. The state budget figure is 8 percent.

"We should raise it at least to 4 percent of GDP or 20-25 percent of state budget, if we want to make serious changes to our educational system."

The overhaul should also include the image of teachers. "The priority is to improve the salary and education of the teachers. We need to restore the respectability of a teacher's profession," he said.

Thanks to H.A.R. Tilaar's recommendations, many teacher training institutes are being transformed from academies into universities.

"We should not just teach the methodology of teaching. They should be field specialists, or many will be jobless once they graduate from the teacher's academy," he said.

"As has been the trend, only 20,000 of 60,000 annual graduates find a job. IKIP has been essentially a factory that produces the unemployed, since many can neither teach properly nor know one field well. It should not be that way. A math teacher should be a mathematician who is competent in his or her field."