The amount of absurdities is such that one problem can hardly stay around long, because another is always lurking in the wings, ready to break out and reinforce more amnesia to cloud over yesterday’s problems. Perhaps only a sense of irony can rescue us from paranoia.

Amidst the hurried campaign against terrorism on the eve of Obama’s visit, something less eye-catching is worth noting: it is an absurdity that has been with us for some time in the form of a craze for anything “international”. In this instance, it concerns the so-called international schools. I must admit, this time I could hide my elation since the National Education Ministry brought this issue to the public’s attention. Of course, my elation was not without reserve, for any state office in Indonesia has a notorious penchant for strong thumbs and no fingers.

The term “international school” can mean many things. It includes schools designed exclusively for children of diplomatic corps; it can also refer to schools devised with explicit curricular contents directed toward international assessment standards; or it can be schools with “international” labels. To this list we could add a variety of schooling programs with “national-plus” or “global” labels.

Save for the term “international” applied to embassy-based schools that have the right and duty to educate children of diplomatic staff in the cultural traditions of their home countries, the issue of “international schools” is problematic.

We can argue endlessly, usually in the name of globalization, about the virtues of having schools with explicit “international” and “global” content in their curricula. Surely we all would wish our children were well equipped with the cultural idioms of the day, although in many cases this argument is overblown. Equipping children with cultural idioms of our globalizing world is indeed part of today’s education, but “global world” is not the only order of the day. Here comes something crucial that tends to be kept hidden and is likely to remain suppressed, perhaps because it upsets the status quo.

Let’s just be blunt. I have never come across “mature” nations that do not guard their education systems fiercely. Again, save for embassy schools, the likes of France, the United Kingdom, Germany or the US would never let anyone roam around freely setting up international schools within their educational systems. Even if the governments of these nations granted some license to such schools, there would not be unusual for pupils to be obliged to learn the national language therein — the issue of compulsory study of religion is another matter warranting different treatment.

We may argue that what has been practiced by these “mature” nations cannot be any guide to the future. The point is well taken. But to argue, say, that “it is impossible for our students to learn Indonesian” is not unlike the act of free riding. It is to profit in your neighbors’ yards, but you censure anyone doing the same in yours. Alas, the asymmetric game in the global powers will make such censure look natural.

Again, let’s be blunt. The obsession with international schools has created a vast market among the upper-middle class in Indonesia. It is no longer secret that this “tidal wave” among the upper-middle class has helped turn education as culture into education as an economic commodity. This is precisely what happened in the unnoticed ideological shift underlying the controversial 2008 Law on Education (UU BHP).

As an educator myself, I cannot hide my fear that this shift will have detrimental impacts on the status of education within the overall nation-building agenda. Being sundered from its status as a fulcrum of the cultural evolution of the nation, education is now regarded mainly as a handmaid of economic transactions, the logic of which is “the highest bidder wins”.

We should not be surprised then that sooner or later, when the trajectory of national life calls for educational institutions to play crucial roles in the political, social and cultural development of the nation, we will be left with an impossible task. This prognosis is not without cognizance that there is a distinction between “education” and “schooling”. However, the distinction is that in the end schooling is the core part of education. That’s why all “mature” nations fiercely guard their school systems, no matter how hard it is under the tidal wave of globalism.

So what does this have to do with our obsession with international schools? While the National Education Ministry should be careful in addressing this problem, and be supportive to any parties genuinely helping Indonesia’s children to be well conversant with the global age, it should not be deterred by demands arising from the heat of the moment. Never before has it been more urgent for the ministry to bring education back to its raison d’etre as a cultural affair. If in this process the obsession with international schools is unhelpful, it would not be a crime to inject some dose of civilizing restraint. It goes without saying that the level of competence on the part of the ministry staff should also be seriously improved.

All this may sound unpleasant, but the situation on the ground has really reached an absurd and alarming state. In the past few years I have had acquaintance with owners, managers and many teachers of these international schools. One of the routine demands posed by an increasing number of pupils’ parents is to abolish Indonesian from the curricula. The reasons vary, but most common is that they want their children to be fluent in English not Indonesian, let alone local languages.

While international schools could help our children become more aware of global challenges ahead, if the situation on the ground is such, it cannot be called education for global awareness. Rather, it is cultural pathology. Indeed, if the point is to inculcate our children with a global awareness, there is hardly any need for “international” mania. Global awareness is one thing, but international schools are another.

It is time for educators in Indonesia to stand up, for the stakes are high: instead of being leaders of Indonesia, in future culturally uprooted children may be good at simply being unscrupulous brokers. This would be akin to cultural suicide.


The writer is a lecturer in the postgraduate program at The Driyarkara School of Philosophy, Jakarta.

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