The Plight of Pancasila Education

Efforts to revive Pancasila education must be accompanied by the development of Pancasila knowledge. Only the purity of science gives birth to this sincerity.

Pancasila education, which was made optional through Government Regulation (PP) No. 57/2021 on national educational standards, has disturbed our common sense.

Why is Pancasila, which is the state ideology, not a compulsory subject in school and university? The recklessness of the Education, Culture, Research and Technology Ministry in revising the Government Regulation (PP) adds to this discussion.

This is one of many times that Pancasila education has experienced a plight. Since the state ideology of our country is perceived as the identity of a certain regime, we do not treat it as a common belonging that must be protected. However, as a legacy of a regime, when the regime collapsed, Pancasila should also have been gone.

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Pancasila education is similar to the indoctrination into Pancasila in the form of the Workshop on the Guidelines for the Appreciation and Practice of Pancasila (P4). If P4 has been removed, why would Pancasila education be revived? That is the way of thinking of those of us who are allergic to the ideology of our own nation.

Actually, Pancasila education is starting to be revived, but it is not complete. In Law No. 12/2012 on higher education, Pancasila became a mandatory subject. The mistake of PP No. 57/2021 was that it did not refer to this law through the lex specialis principle. In its consideration, the PP only refers to Law No. 20/2003 on the national educational system (Sisdiknas). In Article 37 Paragraph (1) and (2), this law does not make Pancasila a mandatory subject in school or university.

The question is, how can the book be run when the legal umbrella does not exist?

Thus, a problem occurs immediately when the government wants to revise Government Regulation No. 57/2021 to revive Pancasila. How can a government regulation (PP) which is a derivative regulation be different from a higher law? If the National Education System Law eliminates Pancasila education, how can the PP on national educational standards bring it to life?

Currently, the author is involved in a team drafting a Pancasila course book formed by the Pancasila Ideology Development Agency (BPIP). The question is, how can the book be run when the legal umbrella does not exist?

KOMPAS/ALIF ICHWAN

A woman observes a mural of the Indonesian national emblem of the Garuda Pancasila in the Pasar Minggu area, Jakarta, Sunday (2/2/2020). The mural reminds all Indonesian citizens must be able to apply the values of Pancasila values in the life of the nation and state.

The plight of Pancasila education is part of the plight of the strengthening of Pancasila and of Pancasila itself. In the context of education, this is due to the stagnation of the revision of the National Education System Law, which actually entered the National Legislation Program (Prolegnas) in 2018.

Unfortunately, in this year\'s Prolegnas, the revision of the law has actually disappeared. There is only the BPIP bill, which is likely to face challenges. Therefore, instead of issuing PPs to revive Pancasila education, what the government must do is to encourage the House of Representatives (DPR) to revise Law No. 20/2003.

Pancasila fetishism

The problem is that the education actors themselves may already have a status quo with the existing conditions. This is because, since the establishment of the 2013 curriculum, Pancasila nomenclature has been included in citizenship education (PKn) and then Pancasila and citizenship education (PPKn). In some circles, PPKn is considered sufficient to educate students about Pancasila. However, for others it is not sufficient, because Pancasila does not stand alone as a mandatory subject.

The fate of Pancasila education as part of PPKn actually reflects our treatment of Pancasila, which has always been minimalistic. This means that we only understand, introduce and teach Pancasila as a "legal deed" for the establishment of the state, without any substantial knowledge of it.

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This is just like the view of Dipo Alam in the article "Pancasila, a common belonging" (Kompas, 16/4/2021). This article, which is a response to Guntur Soekarnoputra\'s article, "The BPIP bill and the institutionalization of pancasila" (Kompas, 30/3/2021), represents a "minimalistic view" of Pancasila.

According to Dipo, the official version of Pancasila (Aug. 18, 1945) is a norm different from the discourse of Pancasila by Sukarno on June 1, 1945. The question is, is Pancasila a norm? No. Pancasila is a basic norm (Grundnorm) which is meta-legal in nature, which shrouds all legal norms under it. As a basic norm, Pancasila is not "state legalism", but rather the basic philosophy of the state.

Right here, Sukarno\'s June 1, 1945, speech becomes important, because the basic meta-legal norms were formulated based on Sukarno\'s exploration of the nation\'s philosophical values. The relationship between the Pancasila of June 1 and Aug. 18 is not a relationship of discourse and norms, but the basic philosophy of the state and the basic norms of the state. Philosophy is the content, while the basic norms are the container.

However, as a result of the New Order’s de-Sukarnoization project, the philosophical content of Pancasila was removed from the foundation of the state. Thus, Pancasila then experienced materialism (fetishism), transforming into a state legal principle empty of conception.

The abandonment of the ideas of the Bung Hatta-led Panitia Lima (Committee Five, 1977) by the New Order deemphasized Pancasila in the intellectual conception of the nation\'s founders. After drying out its intellectual dimensions, Pancasila was transformed by the New Order into a "code of ethics" of behavior in the form of normative values. Pancasila then becomes morality. In fact, since its inception, Pancasila has been a state philosophy and political ideology.

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Thus, our minimalist treatment of Pancasila and the way it is taught is a legacy of the New Order. P4 has indeed been removed, but the paradigm of thinking has actually become our paradigm in treating the basis of the state.

Becoming a science

Based on this, reviving Pancasila as an education subject is part of the presence of Pancasila as a science. This has not been done because Pancasila has undergone legalization on the one hand and "normitization" on the other. Pancasila has not been a treasure of science according to its nature as a philosophy of state.

Historically, we have had an indoctrination model of Pancasila education. This was during the Guided Democracy era through Pancasila education within the framework of Manipol-Usdek and during the New Order era through Education of Pancasila Morals (PMP) and P4.

Only the purity of science gives birth to this sincerity.

It is time for us to revive Pancasila education based on the original conception of Pancasila as a national ideology. AMW Pranarka in Sejarah Pemikiran Pancasila (History of Thought on Pancasila, 1985), for example, emphasized Sukarno\'s June 1 speech as an original conception of the national ideology of Pancasila.

This conception is differentiated from Manipol, or P4, which is the country\'s interpretation. In addition to the ideas of other Pancasila thinkers, we can organize the building of Pancasila science objectively based on scientific methodology, not on power levels.

Kompas

Syaiful Arif

If efforts to revive Pancasila education are not accompanied by the development of Pancasila knowledge, these efforts will create a plight because our efforts are not sincere. Only the purity of science gives birth to this sincerity.

Syaiful Arif, Director of the Center for the Study of Pancasila Thought, CEO of Silapedia

This article was translated by Kurniawan Siswoko