Strengthening human resources in the face of global competition was among major issues highlighted in this year’s commemoration of National Education Day, which fell on Wednesday (2/5/2018).
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JAKARTA, KOMPAS – Strengthening human resources in the face of global competition was among major issues highlighted in this year’s commemoration of National Education Day, which fell on Wednesday (2/5/2018). This issue is in line with efforts to optimize the roles of family, schools and communities in reinforcing character education.
The Education and Culture Ministry held a ceremony and an arts and culture event at its office in Senayan, Jakarta. The Research, Technology and Higher Education Ministry held its own ceremony at Padjadjaran University in Bandung.
Education and Culture Minister Muhadjir Effendy said in his speech that reinforced human resources would be major capital in the face of swiftly changing times and an increasingly complex and unpredictable future. He continued that culture and education had a huge role in this reinforcement of human resources.
To respond to these challenges, stakeholders must reaffirm the importance of character and literacy education, as well as pledge to advance the nation’s intelligence.
Character and literacy education are important aspects in education and culture building. All components of the nation – comprising what the late education icon Ki Hajar Dewantara said as the “three centers of education”: schools, homes and communities – must work together to ensure its success.
“The three centers of education must be fertile ground to sow values of religiosity, honesty, hard work, mutual assistance and many others to ensure the nation’s sovereignty and progress,” Muhadjir said.
In line with the theme of this year’s National Education Day commemoration, “Strengthening Education, Strengthening Culture”, Muhadjir said a national culture must be developed as culture served as the root of national education.
On external challenges, including industrial revolution 4.0, Muhadjir said culture and educational spheres should adjust to the latest dynamics. Aligning educational content and teachers’ skills is important to instill in students five important competences for the new era, namely critical thinking, communication, collaboration, creativity and innovation and self-confidence.
Trends in industrial revolution 4.0 include automation and technology-based data exchange, including physical-cyber system, internet of things, cloud computation and cognitive computation.
Catching up
Meanwhile, in the ceremony held at Padjadjaran University on Jl. Dipati Ukur in Bandung, Research, Technology and Higher Education Minister Mohammad Nasir said the ministry would expand access to higher education by way of implementing a system of online classes. The aim is to increase Indonesian universities’ gross enrollment ratio (GER) and catch up with other South East Asian countries, including Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore.
“With an online system, distance will no longer be a problem in access to higher education. Consequently, higher education can be accessed from anywhere. I hope that our higher education GER will increase by at least 1 percent in the first year and even higher in subsequent years,” Nasir said.
The GER of Indonesian universities is currently 31.5 percent, lower than Malaysia’s 35 percent, Thailand’s 51 percent and Singapore’s 81 percent.
The ceremony in Bandung was also used to officially launch the Indonesia Research Education Network (IdREN). Nasir said IdREN would serve as a collaboration medium between universities in online learning, research and utilization of resources and contents. Such a medium is necessary to fulfill the need of information exchange. It will assist research and innovation development in universities.
Nasir said the online learning system facilitated by IdREN would integrate learning across universities. This will hopefully improve collaboration between universities and increase the quality of higher education in Indonesia.
“Hopefully, the system can be used by all Indonesian universities. If each university builds its own system, it will be very costly,” he said.
Nasir continued that the online learning system would also solve a number of issues, including the increasingly costly college costs, limited number of lecturers and imbalanced distribution of higher education institutions in the country. He said that he was optimistic the system would improve Indonesia’s higher education GER.
According to Nasir, other countries could increase their GERs after implementing widespread online learning system. South Korea, for instance, has a higher education GER of 92 percent.
Resolving problems
Nasir also said that universities would contribute more in improving human resources in response to social issues. This can be implemented by strengthening research and innovation and expanding access to education.
“Higher education institutions are not just another level of education. More than that, they are places to develop research and innovation for the advancement of science and technology and to solve various social problems,” he said.
Nasir cited Citarum River pollution as a major social issue in West Java. “I ask all universities to work together in restoring and cleansing Citarum,” he said.
Padjadjaran University rector Tri Hanggono Achmad said the university had established distance education by launching the Master’s Program of Regional Innovation. The online learning system can be accessed through live.unpad.ac.id.
Indonesia Mengajar director Haiva Muzdaliva, 30, said youths had the strength to be involved in advancing national education. Inter-sectoral collaboration is necessary to expand educational advancement.
Education and Policy Research Center researcher Iwan Syahril said the concepts of Indonesia’ Father of Education, Ki Hajar Dewantara, remained relevant today.