Sometimes people manage to make self-fulfilling prophecies. Usually these prophecies are pessimistic and negative and simply engender negative thinking that contaminates thoughts, like a virus.
This, it is sad to say, is so often the case when people comment on the education system in Indonesia. We are forever hearing of league tables that place us lower than our neighbors and there is a constant stream of negative newspaper headlines that almost seem to enjoy dwelling on poor performance.
We have read headlines like "national education has failed" and "schools not good enough" and it leaves us feeling sad and depressed. But is this really a fair condition to be in? League tables can be misleading.
It is not very often we get to look at the data collection methods used, or for that matter, whether fair comparisons and analyses are actually being made.
Also, when people complain and make accusations about the national education system failing, we should ask how these people define failure and what they really mean by success and are these things reasonable and/or achievable.
Too often people apply liberal thinking to education that claims it is seeking change for improvement and development but is at times little more than wishful thinking and even confused thinking.
A degree of idealism may be being applied to education that, frankly, might just add up to little more than idiocy.
There is passion toward subjects including "paradigm change" and "new ways of educating" but what does this really amount to?
When people start talking about the goals of education being in the areas of values and emotions, they are no longer really addressing problems of education but are looking at problems of society and family life.
It is just not reasonable or fair to suppose teachers in schools should be held solely responsible for the moral values and moral structure and integrity of school children.
In a wishy-washy manner people talk about education needing to build integrity, justice, responsibility and the character of school children, but are schools really responsible for all of this?
The truth is that schools and the education system they represent can only do some of the work needed to create socially responsible individuals. No matter where you go in the world, it is simply a truth that a majority of schools are, and have to be, involved in the development of academics and so too academic results.
The people that like to refer to league tables of education have to realize those tables are based on academic results. They do not measure the social responsibility and conscience of graduating students.
We might reasonably ask, how could they measure such things?
People that claim the national education is failing based on their shallow inspection of league tables contradict themselves when they then expect schools to develop thinkers who are fair, rational and not prejudiced or emotional in their responses to the world.
Parents have to be responsible for nurturing such values in their children.
To simply blame schools for a lack of discipline or moral values is to pass the buck and blatantly ignore parental responsibilities and obligations.
Indonesia's education does certainly need improvement but improvement must come from all of us. Just looking for scapegoats or even just looking for foreign remedies is not the best way to go.
Indonesia has had great figures which have contributed to the improvement of education and so too society, such as Kartini and Suwardi Suryaningrat.
Such national, heroic figures recognized the power of education and sought to bring its empowerment to the people of Indonesia, regardless of gender, race or ability to pay.
It is to be noted the criticisms and complaints about failings in education are quite deliberately pointed at "national" education.
This is perhaps to highlight that people believe the national system is inadequate or incapable and other systems such as international education can be the cure for these problems.
But this seems a highly unlikely scenario too. There are now many schools operating in Indonesia that use the word international, but it may just be an epithet used as much for marketing purposes as for any real educational purpose or beneficial difference.
A former colleague of mine began working at a so-called international school but it was not too long before he resigned in disgust at the lack of difference he saw. In fact what he saw was that children being sent to this school were experiencing more stress and a more and unnecessarily strict disciplinary system than they would have experienced at a national school.
The reality was these students were achieving poor results following an international curriculum, partly because of the strict regime they were under, a culture of fear and the difficulties they encountered trying to work in the English language.
These students at an international school were/are really no better off than national school students in terms of their actual academic and intellectual development but the perception may be that they were/are better off just because the graduating certificate that they received was/is international.
This is a perception but it might also be called a deception.
The problems of Indonesia'S education need Indonesian answers, which is surely what Kartini and Suwardi Suryaningrat would advocate.
We must truly, carefully, calmly analytically look at what is wrong -- but this also means we must define what we really want our education to be.
The writer is a teacher of English and business studies.
| 
|
|
|
|
|
|
|