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President: Full-day school must revive "faded Indonesian values"
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President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo delivers a speech during an event to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the Darussalam modern Islamic boarding school in Gontor, Ponorogo, East Java on Sept. 19. (Courtesy of Presidential Office/Press Bureau)
P
resident Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has expressed his concern over “faded Indonesian values” among the country’s young generation and instructed the Culture and Education Ministry to instill worthy values through the controversial full-day-school pilot project.
The president said Indonesian values, namely national identity, manners, politeness, ethics, and religious values were very important to hand down to the generations to come.
"You see yourselves on social media, how people badmouth each other, mock, insult and make fun of the others. Are those Indonesian values? I say, no,” he said in a statement made available to The Jakarta Post on Monday.
He said he sometimes read the comments sections of online news articles. “I feel sad seeing people insult each other in the comments section. They use swear words that I’m sure are not part of our values. There are other values that have infiltrated without our awareness. Those are the things that erode our character and self-identity as the Indonesian nation,” the President went on.
Thus, he instructed the Education and Culture Ministry to devote a larger portion of the primary and secondary education curriculum to ethics and proper conduct.
The President made the remarks at a ceremony to mark the 90th anniversary of the Darussalam modern Islamic boarding school in Gontor, Ponorogo, East Java, on Monday.
"The full-day school trial in several provinces will instill these values [in youths]. Without such values our identity will be lost. And when I speak with other government heads they highly praise Indonesia because we remain strong despite our differences," Jokowi said. (evi)
