Letter: Family and school’s role in crisis

The progress of education in Indonesia is being questioned. Last Monday (Sept. 19), students from SMAN 6 state high school in South Jakarta assaulted five journalists from various media organizations who were staging a protest against an attack earlier last week on a TV journalist implicating the students. Such brutal assaults, actually, have been increasing in many places in this country and recently have involved not only high schools but also university students.

The question is, what happened to them?

The family, as a basic unit of the society has an important role to educate and build the character of its members. However, along with the sifting form of the family since the industrial era — from the extended family, which may consist of three generations, to the nucleus family, which only consists of husband, wife and children, the institution of family has lost its authority to instill values in children. This loss of authority occurs because parents are too busy to fulfill the daily needs, which forces them to spend most of their time outside their home. They can not play a role as a close friends to their children.

As a result, children become accustomed to values from their surroundings, such as media, the marketplace and the neighborhood. The values they gain from the surroundings will in turn determine their behavior, according to the behaviorial theory.

A lack of attention and affection from parents will also motivate children to find fulfillment of their psychological needs outside the home, including by comitting assault. In the future, they will face a crisis of identity.

In this case, they need a model figure, and if they cannot find it in their home, they will look for it outside. The crisis of model figure in school will worsen the children’s character building.

As an alternative to dealing with the loss of the family institution’s authority in value inculcation that influences the character of children, the boarding school system of education deserves attention. Such a system may keep students from being contaminated by negatives activities from outside. The school headmaster or kyai can serve as a model figure thanks to his charisma, which is a powerful instrument to get the obedience of students. The system provides education based on five principles, namely: sincerity, simplicity, self-reliance, brotherhood, and freedom.

The students’ assault phenomenon needs to be stopped immediately. It only reflects how the education system in Indonesia fails to build students morals. The family and the school have to restore their authority in building the students’ characters, which have been seized by the market.

Muhamad Isna Wahyudi
Surakarta, Central Java