Politics still dominates our education system

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Sat, 06/09/2007 7:14 AM  |  Opinion

Kristian Tamtomo, Semarang

Rachel Davies' article (The Jakarta Post, May 12,) on the forgotten merits of ""traditional"" modes of learning (rote-learning, focus on content) in Indonesian education was very informative. She correctly cautions us to take the new projection of educational change with a grain of salt. (Remember the CBSA -- Active Student Learning Process -- slogan of the 1990s in Indonesia?)

Unfortunately, her comments on Indonesian education mainly focus on a pedagogical point of view, as Indonesian educational development has always been rather political in nature.

It is easy to discover this political nature by taking a quick glance at the history of modern education in Indonesia.

Indonesia's National Education Day is commemorated on the birthday of Ki Hajar Dewantoro (May 2), who was an important member of Budi Oetomo, an organization of educated Indonesians which formed in the early 20th century and is generally seen as the embodiment of National Awakening (day), which is commemorated annually on May 20.

Indonesia's modern nationalist movement itself was driven by the political aspirations of these newly emerging educated Indonesians. They understood that education was politically important because it gave Indonesians the capacity to state their political aspirations and participate in political organizations, negotiations and legal proceedings.

Founding figures -- both men, such as Ki Hajar Dewantoro, and women, such as R.A. Kartini -- of this nation considered education an integral cog in Indonesia's national development.

The Soeharto regime also utilized the political value of education. On one hand, Soeharto used education to prepare a skilled workforce for Indonesia's long-term development projects. On the other hand, education was tailored to ensure students conformed to the regime and ideology of the New Order.

It is for this latter purpose traditional methods of education were strictly applied. Under such a system, where students relied heavily on rote-learning and content focus, it was very convenient and practical for the state to prescribe the exact content it wanted students to learn.

During this period students were taught the New Order version of history, social science that tended to portray society as unified and harmonious, and civic and moral education that advocated a simple, non-consumptive life. It is obvious that the political elites and their relatives did not practice what they preached.

If we consider the ways in which political power has been used (and abused) to prescribe the content of Indonesian education, then perhaps we can begin to understand the negative point of view that current Indonesian educators have on traditional education.

The pedagogical merit of traditional education has long suffered abuse under the Soeharto regime. Many educators are now pressing the government to reform the education system.

But reform is very difficult to achieve, because until now the government still prefers to view Indonesian education from a political perspective, rather than from a pedagogical one.

The influence of politics and bureaucracy in education is strongly reflected in the policies of the four governments -- including the incumbent government -- since Soeharto's fall in 1998.

After the collapse of the Soeharto regime, reforms in the education sector followed suit with the spirit of decentralization. Borne from this process was the 2003 regulation on the national education system. Following this legal framework, pedagogical reform took place in the shape of a new competency based curriculum (KBK), which was set to be implemented nationally in 2004 (even though it had not, strangely enough, been legally signed).

Many people were optimistic that the new curriculum would lead to a balanced education in comparison to the over-cognitive curriculum of the past. The goal seemed realistic. The National Education Ministry, through the Center for Curriculum, issued the competence-based curriculum and the National Book Center was authorized to register KBK-based textbooks suitable to be used in schools.

Surprisingly, however, a new curriculum emerged in 2006 to replace the 2004 KBK, which is now considered an ""experimental"" curriculum, despite the fact thousands of KBK-based textbooks were circulated and used.

Furthermore, the Attorney General's Office (not the National Education Ministry) ruled that a number of history textbooks being used were misleading, since they did not explicitly mention the involvement of the Indonesian Communist Party in the Sept. 30, 1965, coup attempt. To protect the next generation from the ""latent danger of communism"", these textbooks have been banned.

We can also add here the nationwide controversy on national examinations, which have been widely criticized by many as simplifying educational attainment into cognitive indicators of multiple choice questions, and in breach of the 2003 regulation on national education -- which states that teachers and schools should be the ones to evaluate students, not the state.

All of these examples, (particularly the banning of the history textbooks) illustrate that the issues surrounding Indonesian education are not pedagogical, but political, in nature.

The negative image that many Indonesians attach to traditional educational methods may overlook the pedagogical merit it has in shaping certain educational skills. However, we must understand that this stigma is based on the real life experiences of many Indonesians who believe that ""traditional education"" was (and often still is) enacted solely for the purpose of political hegemony.

If Davies suggests that rote-learning is prominent in Indonesian education because of the influence of Asian cultural values, then I would make a bolder claim that rote-learning is prominent because it has proven to be political useful in reproducing state ideology and suppressing critical thinking in the minds of the young.

The writer holds a MA in development studies from the Institute of Social Studies, in The Hague.

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