Wardiman optimistic over nation's schools

By Ivy Susanti

JAKARTA (JP): The Ministry of Education and Culture is among government institutions which got its fair share of criticism over the past five years.

Student brawls, teacher strikes over poor salaries, officials colluding with businesses to turn students into cash cows -- these were among the scenes of national education recently.

Minister Wardiman Djojonegoro reflected on his five years as head of the ministry in a recent talk with The Jakarta Post and expressed his optimism that despite the hardships, the future was bright for national education.

Question: How would you describe national education in the past five years?

Answer: I think there has been a lot of progress. But in this era of openness, about 90 percent of news contains issues that could agitate people. So achievements in the form of improved living standards, economics, finance, housing and education have not been adequately reported.

We can be very optimistic about Indonesian education in the future, because here the community has a very strong drive toward education. Many of our people have struggled to send their children to school even in the face of many hardships, (including the fact they cannot afford to buy) uniforms.

We are facing many challenges. For example, the high dropout rate. But we are working to reduce it. The National Foster Parents Movement was established as part of efforts.

We also provide scholarships and for years they have been granted to students. There have been more foundations taking part in the campaign to provide students with aid, apart from the foster parents movement, including Supersemar and Dharmais (two charity foundations chaired by President Soeharto).

Q: How many of your endeavors can be considered successful?

A: There are many gauges of achievement to measure. However, in terms of quantity, the number of junior high schools, senior high schools and universities have increased.

Take for example the compulsory nine-year basic education. Three years after it was introduced in 1994, the number of children enrolled in schools increased by an average 5.6 percent annually. Given these figures, we are optimistic the basic education program will reach all school-age children.

Quality is more difficult to measure. We can judge the quality of education by the increase in the number of teachers and professors over the past four years.

Q: Which of your programs has not been carried out successfully?

A: We don't call any program unsuccessful.

We proceed with certain programs in accordance with the budget provided to us. For instance, the compulsory nine-year basic education will be completed in 10 years. We will move step by step each year until 2004. If I was asked about the program's achievement in this third year, I would examine the steps that have already been taken. If the program reached a third (of targeted children), I would call it successful.

Our goal is to provide all children with a basic education. This program will be completed by the end of the Seventh Five- Year Development Plan (in 2004). So I prefer to measure a program by how much of the target is reached. In general, the target has been met.

The situation is more complicated if we compare ourselves to other countries such as Malaysia. Their annual per capita gross national product is US$4,500 while we are still earning $1,000. That is why Malaysian teachers get Rp 1.5 million per month while our teachers are still only paid Rp 250,000.

I am very optimistic that we can accomplish what we have targeted.

Q: What have been the difficulties you have faced?

A: First the budget. We receive a restricted budget from the government, so we cannot keep up with developed countries. We have to prioritize. Now our priority is the compulsory nine-year basic education.

Secondly, we need to encourage people to invest in education.

We are now living in a world of consumerism. Many families get confused whether they should spend money on education or not.

Born June 22, 1934, in Pamekasan, Madura Island, East Java, Wardiman earned his doctorate in technical engineering from Delft Institute of Technology in the Netherlands in 1985.

He married the late Sri Oetami and had four children. In May 1993, he married Atie Wagiarti Soekandar, a doctor of pharmacology from Padjajaran University in Bandung, West Java.

He served as assistant to the State Minister of Research and Technology (1979 to 1988) and rector of Indonesia Institute of Technology (1987 to 1989) before he was installed as minister in 1993.

Responding to criticism about the quality of Indonesian schools, he said the government had previously classified schools as "very good", "good", "average" and "below average".

"We are building schools even as we make efforts to raise their quality. There are still schools considered to be 'marginal'. We want to develop the quality of average and marginal schools into good ones. We need time," he said.

Regarding criticism that schools burden parents with unnecessary fees, Wardiman said schools collect money as a way to motivate parents to help finance the development of educational institutions.

"As I have mentioned before, we have a restricted budget, so it's a way to encourage parents' participation," he said.