Who should be educating a better generation?

By Arkiman Racheman

MEDAN (JP): In a recent meeting with state Islamic school teachers in Yogyakarta, Minister of Religious Affairs A. Malik Fadjar asserted that a tremendous crisis was hitting the educational system in Indonesia (Kompas, Nov. 1, 1999).

He identified the primary cause as the shrinking number of guru (Indonesian for "teacher"), as opposed to pengajar (literally "anyone who teaches"), in our secondary schools.

According to Malik Fadjar, guru are special people who supposedly set exemplary examples in conduct and morality for their students. Their shortage and the lack of their good examples for others to follow have seemingly led our nation into crisis.

If this educational anomaly is not seriously addressed, the minister continued, it would be difficult to materialize "a well- mannered and religious society" in the future. And it is well understood that to make it possible for the desired civil society to occur, the supply of a new Indonesian breed is beyond any doubt.

Semantically speaking, the word guru is not the same as just a pengajar. The latter has a much narrower or more specific nuance of meaning. People "teaching" anything at all, even though they may not be up to the required minimum level of qualification needed for that purpose, can be simply referred to as pengajar.

Ironically, they can at times be found "teaching their students a lesson" in the sense that they still physically punish them as a necessary part of the commonly practiced disciplinary system in most Indonesian schools.

Implications of the word guru are entirely different from any of the implied notions mentioned above. They are often culturally construed (also by the minister himself) as specialists who will, by their noble nature, impart every bit of their essential knowledge, both profane and divine, including that of social etiquette and morality, to their students.

It is not so surprising, therefore, that even in the modern English dictionary the word "guru" is still maintained and used, but in the original sense of "a spiritual teacher or leader", hence, a person who provides spiritual guidance or direction to followers.

It is possible this interesting semantic differentiation between the two words may well have been responsible in the first place for the way the words are now being differently treated in our language. That is to say, pengajar being so readily accepted as an antonym for guru. Would it be reasonable to say that this reality may have also paved the way for coinage of the expression "Hari Guru Nasional" and rejection of "Hari Pengajar Nasional", both meaning National Teachers Day?

It can be said here that the word pengajar, when it is juxtaposed with guru, almost always implies things in the negative, while the word guru, on the contrary, has only positive connotations. But there could be different implications suggested by the words.

First of all, within the present climate of severely commercialized education, pengajar are often imagined as sheer "employees" who operate and keep the educational "company" rolling, whereas guru are increasingly left behind in the view of idealistic creatures incapable of surviving the hurly-burly of modern materialism.

While pengajar are frequently busied by their own obsession with the tantalizing material world, guru are more deeply engaged in their focused devotion for the pupils in order that they grow and mature emotionally, intellectually and spiritually.

Philosophically speaking, guru and pengajar in principle differ from one another, especially when viewed from the kind of substance they hand down to their students. Guru, most of the time, impart the whole of their knowledge in its totality; while pengajar, for one reason or another, may only offer a fragmented body of knowledge.

Good guru have no justified fear of being potentially subdued or troubled by their smart students, but pengajar, even the best, would at times worry about having to deal with their brilliant students, who are customarily the most "hassling" and, for that matter, the most time-consuming as well.

Therefore, guru lead and act by example, while pengajar transmit their synthesis of knowledge as something detached from their real life altogether. In other words, the former must be able to prove and apply their own teachings empirically even outside the context of their own professional formalism. The latter are conditioned merely as a cold extended hand for the objective source of knowledge.

That is the reason why few people could become guru on the basis of their formal teaching qualifications alone. And, within this connection, it can be said as well that no single teachers' training institute in the country would be capable of "producing" such in-demand guru either. Therefore, ideal guru should already have contained those lofty qualities in themselves far beforehand, or they can never be ones at all.

Meanwhile, if need be, the number of pengajar can always be multiplied quantitatively, even in a fortnight or so, by means of a certain training package carried out in conduction with the government's educational policy on procedural uniformity.

Therefore, unlike pengajar, guru must be "the chosen ones" and not "those who choose" to be ones. Like a divinely appointed prophet, guru must be selected from the entire human race in order to carry out a special prophetic mission.

In implementing their missionary work, guru commit themselves only to their deeply felt conscience and their own spiritual consciousness, while pengajar would go only as far as fulfilling the task of their profane commitment.

Consequently, guru feel a deeper and more direct responsibility for their students' acquired competence as well as their failure. Pengajar, on the other hand, are not always willing to attach themselves to such a mode of self-sacrificial commitment.

In the system of conduct, the former gratefully allow their own profession to mold for themselves a particular binding lifestyle, but the latter only view their profession as a part- time social or, worse still, commercial self-involvement.

To put it in different words, guru will always act as ones even when they are not carrying out their professional function; while pengajar are easily and, at times, consciously swept along into the current of their social life.

It is not hard to imagine, therefore, that the guru of that sort will always be the minority in the countries like Indonesia where sole economic concerns predominate, but pengajar constitute the domineering majority in an increasingly consumerism culture. The reason for that is manifold.

First, it is easier to make the latter available in large numbers. They are everywhere and, for that matter, are easier to locate, but guru are increasingly difficult to find nowadays in this ever-despiritualizing society of ours due to their natural scarcity.

Second, it is presumably cheaper for the government to produce the pengajar rather than guru in "industrialized" educational projects which often emphasize radically intensive indoctrination syllabi. In practice, these professionals of relatively minimal quality standards are siap ditempatkan (ready for allocation) in industrial posts rather than highly qualified gurus who are siap pakai (ready for use) in all fields of employment.

Finally, it would not seem a serious problem to sacrifice the pengajar's scanty idealism than guru's deep-rooted personal integrity. So much so that the pengajar would not consciously reject being used by their money-gapping institution as a cheap source of labor. The guru is considerably harder to persuade, because for them, as always, "it is far better to starve than to prostitute" their sense of honor.

To return to the religious affairs minister's concern, we ask: Has the shortage of guru in our secondary schools really caused such a tremendous crisis? Such irreparable damage?

If that is the case, then there is no doubt that our nation is now on the verge of total moral collapse. Why? Because the older generation of people (read: the leftovers of the previous regime) who have, unfortunately, fallen into disgrace due to their past moral decadence cannot be expected to play a positive role any longer.

Habibie's transitional government, in the mean time, is far too busy feeding the hungry nation to have time to recognize any long-term ideals. Meanwhile, a totally corrective new generation of breed only exists in everyone's imagination, as it has not actually shown any sign of imminence in actuality.

However, if the present condition is still within reach, would it not be right for the present powerholders and decisionmakers of the country to first of all lament over the worsening crisis in our education system, and soon afterward do something substantial about it before it is too late?

At any rate, to establish a truly civilized New Indonesian society, the urgency of which is voiced through thousands of Reformasi microphones, without concrete support in the form of an emerging new generation of Indonesians who are "well-behaved and religious" would be a mission impossible. And to hope for a whole new bunch of civilized Indonesians to appear "out of the blue", but without the ceaseless labor of genuine guru, would be an absurdity.

The writer is a New Zealand university graduate and English lecturer. He is based in Medan.