EDUCATION REFORMATION IN INDONESIA

If you heard someone mention Indonesia, what is the first thing pop up in your head? Maybe for the last few years it will be terrorism and natural disasters. That’s also the same idea of Indonesia to the people I know here in India where I domicile for the last couple of years. Those people could not be blamed for that because most of news in international media only covers those issues.

But there is much more that happen in Indonesia apart from those things. Well, what can we say, bad news sales! Just like sex sales! That is the main jargon and principle in commercial broadcasting. However, there are also some positive movements in Indonesia which might skip international’s eyes. Slowly but sure the economic situation getting more and more conducive for a progressive recovery from the impact of financial crisis in the late 90s. Now, Indonesia has been considered as the third largest democratic nation in the world after USA and India.
But what is the main problem that Indonesians should solve before they can assume a prestigious place in International stage? It’s not corruption, collusion or nepotism which already destruct the whole social structure of the nation.

The first thing that Indonesians should do before try to solve all those problems is to reconstruct the education system in the country. It’s a common knowledge that educational system in Indonesia is as centralized as its governance during the New Order regime. This kind of education had limited student’s ability to develop their skill in suitable manner to their own interest. Students were not judged base on their practical ability but more on their theoretical knowledge. There is nothing wrong in it but what good of a theory without any practical ability. This practice had caused most of Indonesian students had to face a different reality from what they had learnt in school with what they have to do in the real world.

A centralized education could also cause student’s inability to digest local issues logically. In most cases, educational curricula in Indonesia were constructed by central government where sometime the focus of the curricula had put aside local needs. Intolerances to local needs in educational curricula had created a situation where student could not react to local demand immediately after graduation. There should be a system adjustment where education in an agricultural region is focused on agricultural topic rather than industrial matter and vice versa. But in practice there are many mismatches where an agricultural community was given an industrial based education. As a result this kind of mismatch would push the rate urbanization because school graduates felt that they could not practice their education in rural area where they were originated.

In the recent years, Indonesian government has started to reform its educational system. However, the emphasis of this reformation mainly in cultural education where student in the region are given lesson in ethnic language. The practical necessities of education are still put aside. There should be a national enlightenment to change the whole educational system and it will take a lot of time and financial back up but Indonesia should be willing to go through this change and pay all the price needed.

Corruption, collusion and nepotism problem will be solved when the whole Indonesian nation has been enlightened. The only way to enlighten a nation is through education.