Translating political agenda into educational reform

Mochtar Buchori, Jakarta

A number of friends complained to me about the slow reaction of the education community to address public demands for improvements in our political life. The public, at present, demands a life without corruption, collusion and nepotism. It also wants to see an end to the use of violence, especially in matters related to our life as a multicultural society.

In addition, the people also demand that our politicians behave in a more decent manner, and stop deceiving the public. What is the response of educators to all these legitimate demands? What kind of educational reforms are our educational authorities planning to make so that these political dreams come true?

"None," complained one of my friends. "You guys in education are either insensitive toward public sentiment, or you are just a bunch of politically retarded people." I was dumbfounded by this angry remark

I must admit that these politically hyperactive friends have their reasons to be frustrated, and that a large part of their frustration is indeed valid. What they may not know, though, is that political aspirations or dreams cannot be instantly converted into the educational agenda. A sound educational agenda can never be based on political wishes or political commands. No matter how legitimate or how urgent these wishes may be, they have to be converted first into a format that fits the demands of educational planning.

The greatest difficulty in this regard is the difference in the mode of expression between politics and education. In politics, aspirations are expressed in terms of accomplishments. But in education, programs are expressed in terms of potential and processes.

Thus, when the public expresses its determination to put an end to corruption, people in education ask what kind of educational processes must be designed to make future generations increasingly dislike and abhor corruption. When the public declares a sincere wish to stop violence at home and in public life, people in education have to think of a series of steps that, within a given time interval, will prepare younger generations to become increasingly more capable of solving problems through peaceful means.

Examples concerning this conceptual gap between political and educational thinking can be extended endlessly. Suffice it to say that the necessary slow response of education to political decisions is caused mainly by the fact that a number of rules must be observed in translating the political agenda into education.

One of these rules is that a political agenda must first be translated in a holistic manner to become a good educational program. What must be translated is thus a political agenda in its entirety, not elements within it. In our present situation, we have then to ask, "What does the public really want with its various debates about political change?"

If my understanding is correct, what the public wants is essentially to see a three-pronged change in our life as a nation, i.e. substantial and substantive improvements in the character of the nation; a government that is cleaner and more competent than the present one; and a more mature democracy in which violence is avoided and cultural pluralism is respected. These are tall political orders. How can we get there? In how many years or decades? And in what way?

If this reading is correct, we can then ask ourselves what kind of educational strategy should be devised for, let us say, the next twenty years to bring each of the coming generations closer and closer towards these three grand objectives. This is, in my view, a national assignment that requires much penetrative and realistic thinking.

First, we have to spell out, what the expression "a nation with a character" (bangsa yang berwatak) really means, and what "character education" really is. In my view, a nation can only be referred to as "a nation with a character", if it fulfills two requirements, i.e. it respects and upholds all laws and other public norms commonly agreed upon, and it has the ability to build and shape its own future.

On the basis of this understanding, "character education" can then be defined as the act of guiding the young generation towards "voluntary personal commitment to values", to borrow Prof. Phenix's words from Columbia University, and toward the capability to generate collective resolutions regarding the future of the nation.

The question is now how to proceed from what and how we have been doing it thus far to what and how we should be doing it in the future. We have to admit that the way we tried to shape the character of the young generation is in most cases inadequate and insufficient. When it comes to teaching norms, most teachers in normal Indonesian schools -- perhaps not in national plus schools -- still employ rote memorization and indoctrination as a means to teach. Many teachers think that knowing the norms and regulations is the important objective, and that understanding their meaning for the diverse real life situations will come automatically.

If we want to improve our method of guiding the young toward life characterized by integrity -- because this is what in the end "to have character" really means -- we have to change the objectives of character education, meaning not merely to know the norms or values of the society, but to extend it to include the understanding of these norms and values as well, and eventually the ability to implement them voluntarily and to make them guideposts for daily life.

Our second shortcoming in character education as we have carried it out thus far, has been that we never pay enough attention to the question of how to engage students in efforts to become a better self, and how to train them to plan and shape their own future. In the classical pedagogical jargon this is called "neglect of building conative capability" (from Latin conatio, and conari, meaning effort and to try).

We have always believed that building cognitive capability was a very important objective; but we give only scant attention to the building of affective capability; and we always overlook building students' conative capability. And since this inadequate and insufficient character education has been going on for generations, is it really surprising that we, as a nation, have become confused with our own character?

And what kind of education should we provide to the young generations to help them become capable of forming a "clean and competent" government when they become the backbone of the nation? And what about educating the young generations to build -- in their own time -- a "more mature democracy in which violence is avoided, and plurality is better appreciated"?

I do not think I can discuss these huge problems adequately within the span of 1,000 words. I just want to emphasize that in education there are no drastic changes that can be achieved instantly. Education toward fundamental changes -- political or otherwise -- is always a long and arduous process.

Thus to my political friends I just want to say that we in education are neither insensitive nor retarded. We are just trying to be mindful of not repeating a past mistake, i.e. to become an ardent political slave, and unknowingly cause the nation to become trapped in unstoppable corruption, incompetence, and shameless public deceptions.

The writer is a House member who represents the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).