Reconstruction of Education
The biggest problem in educational development in Indonesia today is the wide gap between aspirations and realization, between what is voiced (voices) and the policy choices being implemented (choices).
Everyone knows the importance of education as the locomotive of the nation's progress, and almost everyone knows that there are many problems in our education. However, almost nobody knows how to deal with the various problems that exist.
The vision of Joko Widodo's administration in the second term, a determination to intensify human resource development, received enthusiastic responses as a discursive lure to end in disappointment as a practical manifestation. The changes introduced by the new education regime were so intense as a work of deconstruction, but still so dubious as a work of reconstruction.
It seems that we are not aware that education development can actually stand alone. The progress of education reflects the conditions and vision of development as a whole. Thus, efforts to transform education must start from the redefinition of development itself. Amartya Sen launched a sharp critique of the development trend that places too much emphasis on physical-material development. For him, the essence of development is an effort to improve the quality of life. Talking about quality of life, the main issue is capability, and when it comes to capability, the key word is education.
Ray Dalio (2021) said, throughout the history of civilization development, there are two determinants that influence the nation’s pace: first, the inherited determinants (inherited factors): geography, geology (natural resources, minerals), genealogy (genetic) and natural behavior (pandemic, flood, drought); second, human capital. Although the heritable determinant plays an important role, the human capital factor is more decisive for the nation's progress and prosperity.
Ideal education
Based on experiences in different countries, the path of revival and prosperity of a nation requires a strong and capable leadership with the ability to offer excellent alternative systems. Excellent systems include and start from good education. Good education not only teaches knowledge and skills, but also a strong character, civility and work ethic; developed in school, family and community.
According to Ki Hadjar Dewantara, a good education system should have a "tri-kon" (three cons) perspective: continuous or connected with its own culture and cultural roots as well as its own natural environment and resources; converging with all cultural streams, cutting-edge developments and best practices in the world; concentric or united in the realm of universal culture without losing national character.
Just like plant cultivation or farming, the desired outcome of education is like a superior tree: its roots go deep; the tree is towering; stems and branches hanging neatly; the leaves are shady; the fruit is ripe and pithy. The root is the character; the tree is knowledge gained from insight; its branches are the skills and competencies in governance; the leaf is the ability to cooperate (develop harmony in diversity); the fruit is the life of citizenship and nationality with personality and civilized in culture, sovereign and wise in politics, independent, just and prosperous in economy.
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Good education enables students to stay rooted in the social environment and local wisdom, and to have a strong ethos and ethical power. Good education also fosters respect for laws and regulations -- order in society -- which leads to a low level of corruption and the willingness to cooperate between a diverse citizenry to increase productivity. Such an atmosphere can encourage the transformation from an effort to produce basic products to an economy based on innovation and new technology. Be open to the best minds thriving in the world, with the ability to do practical things intertwined with an innovative and productive spirit.
Education as a vehicle for developing the quality of life must pay attention to the development of its capabilities and functions. Success is not only measured in terms of resource inputs -- such as teacher-student ratios -- and outcomes -- such as school results with certain test scores and qualifications. What is more important is its functioning: what a person can do and can become effectively in real life.
The education system must pay attention to the dimensions of mental-spiritual-character values (mental-cultural), institutional and policy governance (institutional-political) and welfare (material-technological).
What is meant by “functioning” is the results achieved or realized (achieved outcomes): such as a reading culture, being able to take part in the social life of a community, being able to develop a business by taking advantage of existing opportunities and so on. Capability is the potential to be able to achieve that functionality -- such as getting reading lessons, the availability of books and magazines, getting lessons about developing critical attitudes, participation in groups, as well as creative (innovative) learning spaces. Capability and function are closely related and determine human qualities.
To achieve these aims, the education system must pay attention to the dimensions of mental-spiritual-character values (mental-cultural), institutional and policy governance (institutional-political) and welfare (material-technological).
Mental-cultural values
In the mental-cultural dimension, it is necessary to formulate the human character of the learner, what kind of capability and function you want to develop. The current education regime has formulated the so-called "Pancasila Student Profile": 1. Have faith in and be obedient to God Almighty, and have a noble character; 2. Global diversity; 3. Independent; 4. Working together; 5. Critical reasoning; 6. Creative.
That formulation should be perfected or improved. First, the profile concerns the nature and character. What is meant by character is the disposition of moral personality. If the personality is generic (positive or negative), character is a personality that has been assessed as something positive. Therefore, the profile formulation must be attributive, not descriptive. The second character ideal, for example, says “global diversity”. This formula is descriptive, meaning global diversity. It should be expressed as an attribute -- what kind of character capabilities are needed to embrace global diversity?
Second, the content of Pancasila in the formula does not describe all the principles of Pancasila. Third, that formula also does not describe the capabilities of the human character as a learner more comprehensively.
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To improve it, we can absorb the Pancasila worldview which views humans as paradoxical (not dichotomous) beings that should be able to maintain a continuum of balance between individual and social, physical and spiritual, particular and universal beings.
In addition, the total content of the profile, like Pancasila, is sufficiently formulated in five points. Thus, we can formulate a "Pancasila Student Profile (Learner)": 1. Belief in divinity with the spirit of noble character; 2. Love the Motherland with a cosmopolitan spirit (universal brotherhood); 3. Independent, with the spirit of gotong royong (community work); 4. Creative-critical reasoning with a deliberative spirit (wisdom of deliberation); 5. Competent (capable) with the spirit of service and justice.
Governance, welfare
In order to cultivate such a learner mental-culture, appropriate institutional and policy governance is required. In formulating an education transformation strategy, it is necessary to maintain a balance between aspirations and capabilities. Taking immeasurable deconstructions, which are difficult to reconstruct in the short term, should be avoided. Moreover, in conditions of a political order that does not guarantee the continuity of the inter-regime agenda, pretending to change things can result in an inability to reconstruct anything.
What needs to be thought about is how to make “limited” changes with a big impact. It requires the ability to identify the “weakest link”. The weakest link in our education is the early and basic education. The priority of education transformation should start with fixing this, then shift to the next level. Like a tree, the roots are the fulcrum of resistance to growth.
Likewise, in the process of growing human life, the solution to the backwardness of educational outcomes must begin with reforming early and basic education, by strengthening the roots of character. In early childhood education, it is necessary to avoid the imposition of various memorization and numeric-literacy abilities, as well as a learning framework that is too structured, dictates and is rote-intensive, which restricts children's freedom and exploration power. Children must grow up in a culture of playing, engage in interactions with a variety of peers, explore the nature of life, cultivate their agility and imagination.
Research shows that animals that are more playful, such as dogs, develop to be more intelligent and agile. Likewise, children are more involved in the culture of playing. By playing together, children learn to work together. Young children learn from older children, which fosters a sense of responsibility to transfer life experiences. Less structured plays also train participants to be willing to compromise. If someone feels bored, the play can stop. Conflict never lasts because the play will bring them back to the field with joy (Bregman, 2020).
Elementary education must avoid excessive curriculum burdens. As the name implies, basic education is expected to foster basic human learning skills: the culture of reading, writing, counting and speaking.
Basic education must also provide character foundation in the learning process to become a complete human being. For this reason, the provision of the four basic sciences should be combined with four vehicles for character building and creative ethos: olah pikir or thinking (critical thinking and problem solving), olah rasa or mental condition (spirituality, ethics and aesthetics), olah raga or sports (games and kinesthetic agility) and olah karsa or initiative (willingness/creative imagination). With these four basic knowledge skills, students have the keys to enter the world of knowledge as good learners. With four vehicles for character building and creativity, they have the keys to enter the world of life as good citizens (world).
All of this requires a proper governance and welfare system. Indonesia's main problem is the unequal distribution of teachers and schools, both in quantity and quality. Delegating affairs entirely to the central government makes it difficult to distribute education according to the diversity of each region. Delegating affairs entirely to the regions makes it difficult for resource mobilization to be transferred from areas with excess to those with shortages.
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The direct regional head election (pilkada), with its high costs and extensive campaign teams, often results in the placement of incompetent people in the local education regime. For that, we can apply partial decentralization. For development affairs, the procurement and maintenance of physical items can be left to the regions and the affairs of the curriculum and teachers are handed over to the central government.
Furthermore, the central government can implement asymmetric policies. For regions with a relatively good adequacy ratio, distribution and quality of teachers, broad autonomy can be given to the regions. The government can also grant autonomy to schools that have met accreditation standards. The central government only stipulates the basic framework and structure of the curriculum, the rest of the schools can develop their own creativity. For regions that have not fulfilled this requirement, the central government still has to carry out the issue of teacher placement/distribution, assistance in curriculum preparation, as well as improving the quality of teachers and schools.
To prevent a mismatch between the educational process as an inculcation of capability and its functioning effectively in concrete life -- such as in the world of work -- it is necessary not only to improve the quality of education, but also to design strategies and priorities for economic-industrial development. The quality of education cannot be developed optimally when quality education outcomes do not find room for actualization in society and the labor market.
The quality of education develops along with the improvement in the performance of economic governance, which is measured in the progress of the productive sector. To overcome the poverty trap and the lower-middle class and trade deficit, Indonesia must transform itself from an extractive-based economy, traditional agriculture and conventional manufacturing to an industrial-based economy (knowledge economy). Through studies of developed countries, the efforts to grow prosperity cannot only rely on push factors from the state. Prosperity development can take root more easily when it is connected with innovations at the heart of the market and community.
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Yudi Latif
Yudi Latif, Member of the Indonesian Academy of Sciences
This article was translated by Kurniawan Siswo.
