Notes on 75 Years of National Education

KOMPAS/RIZA FATHONI

Youth scavengers pass in front of a mural voicing education for the poor on Jalan Raden Inten, Jakarta, on Saturday (28/4/2012). The higher cost burden makes education more difficult for the poor to reach.

On 19 August 2020, the Education and Culture Ministry will turn 75 years old.

Much has been successfully done in post-colonial education and should be appreciated. However, there are also things that need to be criticized and corrected. Indonesia, together with China, India, the United States and Brazil are countries with large populations spread over their large territories.

Equitable education

The geographic character of the Indonesian archipelago adds to the challenge of equalizing education services. So, from the start, the government recognized the need to evenly distribute schools throughout the country. In this regard, Indonesian education has been successful, at least in achieving literacy and teaching the national language.

Also read: Higher Education Challenges: Why Pay High Fees Just to Study Online?

A person who visits remote areas anywhere in Indonesia can communicate relatively easily in Indonesian with the local population. This success is sometimes used as a reference for other developing countries. However, in the practice of providing formal education, equity is highly prioritized by sometimes sacrificing or neglecting quality. In fact, equity and improving the quality of education can and should increase simultaneously.

As a result, the location of residence and the social strata of the family to this day still differentiate and determine the quality of educational services experienced by children.

As a result, the effort to equalize education is in practice often considered educational uniformity. What is taught and how to teach it in Jakarta is forced to be the same as in Ambon. A uniform way of thinking is forced on Indonesia with its unique and very diverse geographic circumstances. This uniformity of education then becomes the main obstacle to improving the quality of education in Indonesia. As a result, the location of residence and the social strata of the family to this day still differentiate and determine the quality of educational services experienced by children.

Uniformity

Cultural diversity and even its geographical facts cannot yet be accepted, let alone considered as an advantage or strength. Diversity is still considered a reality that needs to be understood. It seems that diversity is still considered a hassle so it needs to be curbed. The view of diversity as a burden that needs to be understood and at the same time can be sacrificed has penetrated educational policy and practice as well. Now, the desire to make education uniform is the main obstacle to educational progress.

Also read: Adapting to Working from Home

Uniformity always coexists with its cousin, coercion. Efforts to make educational practices uniform, for example school uniforms, require an element of coercion from the surroundings. Negligence also becomes a catalyst for uniformity. The choice of what to make uniform can also be politicized, especially in the era of sectarian populism rising around the world.

Kompas

A teacher of tidies up a stack of homework folders containing student assignments on Wednesday (5/8/2020) at a drop-off point in front of SDIT Ibnu Sina Duren Sawit Islamic integrated character-building school in East Jakarta. The school holds online classes and assigns homework every two weeks for distance learning (PJJ) during the large-scale social restrictions (PSBB) in Jakarta, which still does not allow in-school classes.

The policy of enforcing uniformity has long roots. When government power is weak, group support is usually sought. The way to do this is by making various populist policies, including in education.

Therefore, sectarian populism begins to penetrate national education policies and education becomes less and less universal. Then, the sectarian idea begins to be forced into national education curriculum and even influences the formulation of educational goals. The national education curriculum is no longer common. With the exception of terms that are not common and are not necessarily understood by the whole society, what is sacrificed most by this politicizing step in education is the loss of the sense of belonging.

Not all groups in society feel connected to public education curriculum. The biggest impact is that parts of society feel distanced and alienated from the idea of national education. This desire to impose uniformity on a comprehensive scale has now sadly been taken for granted. As a result, today, the desire to make it uniform has become a parasite and at the same time a pillar of national education. National education cannot fly high because its wings have been gripped by the burden of uniformity.

National education standards and curricula are forced to use the same format for all subjects. One form of table (which looks very stiff, boring, procedural and not creative) is forced to be obeyed by all sciences or subjects. Beauty and scientific genius, as a result, must surrender and abide by the administration. Diversity has been sacrificed for the sake of oneness.

In the future, national education documents such as standards, curricula, and moreover teaching materials must depart from diversity.

In fact, education should follow scientific uniqueness. The administration should understand the characteristics of each science. Pedagogy must follow uniqueness of scientific content, not the other way around. For example, the teaching of history, let alone physical education, is clearly different from teaching the language. This scientific difference and uniqueness must not be eliminated, but must be preserved and used as the main guideline. In the future, national education documents such as standards, curricula, and moreover teaching materials must depart from diversity.

The formulation of national education must keep in mind this uniqueness from the bottom to the top. It is hoped that in the future, diversity at the lower level will continue to be maintained up to the top.

Indeed, the work of bureaucracy and administration will made easier if the practice of education is uniform. However, bureaucratic inconvenience should not justify uniformity. On the contrary, the diversity and uniqueness of Indonesia\'s culture, geography, science and nature must continue to live in the minds of policymakers. Just as the Djuanda Declaration succeeded in inviting the world\'s citizens to think from the perspective of the unique geographical features of an archipelagic country, particularly Indonesia, so is the perspective of Indonesia\'s diversity that must always be lived up to by the determinants of national education policies.

Also read: School Reopening in Yellow Zone Risky

The common thread of inter-scientific grand ideas must be recognized and used as guidance at the top level. The top policy must be general in nature so that it supports and protects the diversity that is existing below, such as scientific diversity and cultural diversity.

Kompas

Children wear masks and a face shield on Thursday (6/8/2020) as they study outdoors on the bank of Ciliwung River in Kampung Kebonjukut of Babakan Pasar village in Central Bogor, West Java. The students headed to the riverbank to get a good mobile signal outside the dense settlement, so they can download their schoolwork, and then headed back to one of their houses to continue studying together. Many students study in small “pods” like this one, as not all have digital devices or internet access.

Then, policies that support diversity are narrated or orchestrated through educational documents effectively, namely in simple, sensible and natural language so that every citizen feels they own the documents. Absolutely no citizen should feel compelled to accept these state documents.

Uniformity of proficiency

There is another worrying uniformity trend, namely uniformity of skills. With the increasing popularity of international education evaluations, such as PISA, leaders and politicians around the world have used it to do politics, campaign for themselves or attack their political opponents.

PISA and state performance ranking based on PISA scores have now become political tools in the world. The education policies of many countries in the world now refer to PISA, and sometimes some even believe absolutely and comply with the results without criticism. Many world leaders are now simplifying the quality of education for countries by PISA scores. So, a pragmatic strategy is created to increase the PISA score of students. Thus, the educational goals have been narrowed down, simply to increase the PISA score.

As a result, a new education policy is created to increase student scores on international tests. What happens in schools then is the teaching for the test strategy or teaching for the PISA test. The achievement of children, schools, and even national education is measured by international tests. What may have been rarely observed and criticized, many children in the world today are pursuing the same global skills. If being reckless, in the future there will be a uniformity of skills in the world. On the one hand, this fact is good because students sharpen their global skills and there is nothing wrong with this. However, local skills also need to be developed. Developing global skills does not mean neglecting local skills, such as the carving skills of the Asmat tribe or Bajo tribal sea knowledge. Global skills are just as important as local skills.

Kompas

Iwan Pranoto

Before being stopped due to the epidemic crisis in 2020, there have been efforts to make national exams at least in Mathematics, Science, and Language more similar to PISA. The national assessment is made to follow the global assessment, namely testing the skills such as the PISA test. Now, not only in government, several NGOs and non-governmental research institutions in the field of education have also participated in this global assessment. They also sometimes test or teach specifically similar knowledge and skills in international assessments. As a result, many local skills are threatened with extinction in the future.

For the next 25 years, policymakers and society need to be increasingly able to loosen the desire for uniformity in education, on the contrary, they should be eager to bring diversity in Indonesia to the outside world.

Iwan Pranoto, Mathematics lecturer at the Bandung Institute of Technology