The Development of Education in Indonesia

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses about the undeveloped education system in Indonesia, that it has not been evenly spread. This habit has already become a social pathology or social disease that could threatens all aspects of life as a community, a nation and a country. As a fact, it actually acted as the seeds of the major issues that are never been resolved yet such as poverty.

If we do not manage to eradicate the education that has not been evenly spread throughout Indonesia or at least reduce to the lowest possibilities at this point, then none of us shall hope this country will be able to pursue the lead down compared to other countries to finally categorised as a developed country. The impact is quite extensive and it could bring the nation to the brick of collapse. Education does not only teach about knowledge and intellectual property, it also builds people to have the moral quality or personality.

This paper is using the method of Historical approach. The data supports the interpretation of processed with problems using the facts of history and compacted the writing that has been formulated accordingly, follows with the objectives to be achieved.

INTRODUCTION

A. Background

The progress of a country is determined by the ability and the success of it in carrying out the development where it is determined as the process of change that planned to cover all aspects of people's lives. The effectiveness and success of development is mainly determined by two factors, human resources, i.e. the people who are involved from the planning to the implementation and also, financing. However, between two of these factors, the most dominant factor is the human factor itself.

Indonesia is considered as one of the richest countries in Asia that could be seen from the diversity wealth of its natural resources. But ironically, compared to the other countries in Asia, this beloved country is yet still included as a developing country. Why is that so? One of the reasons is because the low quality of its human resources. The quality of the human resources itself is not only in terms of the moral quality or personality but also in terms of concerns in the knowledge and intellectual property. That is why the development of a forward and evenly spread of education in Indonesia is very important.

According to Indonesian law towards the function and purpose of education in No. 20 in the year of 2003 on article 3 described that “The national education function developed the ability to form character and the civilisation of the dignity in the framework of the intellectual life of the nation, aimed at the development of potential learners in order to become a man of faith and piety to God Almighty, precious, healthy, have learned, accomplished, creative, independent, and become citizens of a democratic and responsible.” The more fragile the knowledge and intellectual property of its people especially in the apparatus of the state organisers, the more the country will led backwards that could cause issues such as poverty.

DISCUSSION

B. Identifying the Main Issue

The current situation of education in Indonesia has not yet reach the maximum results as what it is expected and wanted. It is certainly far from the estimation of any country, especially in Indonesia that the progress of improvement is still on the stage of developing without finding any pointers of results, along with promising progress towards the application of education.

The first factor that caused the undeveloped education in Indonesia is certainly because of the apparatus of the state organisers that happens to be not yet able to found a figure that understands the importance of education and willing to direct the related institutions to implement a policy of establishing education in Indonesia with a forward and evenly throughout the Nusantara.

According to East 101′s recent investigation, highlighted some shocking facts about the Indonesian education system, including:

• Only a third of Indonesian students – in a country where 57 million attend school – completed basic schooling.

• Education experts said that less than half of the country’s teachers possess even the minimum qualifications to teach properly and teacher absenteeism hovers at around 20 percent. Many teachers in the public school system work outside of the classroom to improve their incomes.

• Indonesian Corruption Watch claims that there are only a few schools in Indonesia that are clean of graft, bribery or embezzlement – with 40 percent of their budget siphoned off before it even reaches the classroom.

One of the Indonesian government’s responses to these findings has been processed to restructure the Indonesian curriculum, including postponing teaching science, geography and English until the students attends secondary school. For a nation economically prospering, geographically located in a region that looks set to be at the forefront of world economics and politics it seems a bemusing choice to make.

Second, of course it is also affected by the public awareness itself towards the importance of a country's education system. Nowadays, there are still some aspects that do not have the will to go to school even though it is provided across their region. According to the Education for All Global Monitoring Report that were released by UNESCO in 2011, the high school dropout rate leads to a low ranking of development index where Indonesia is on the ranked of 69 out of the other 127 countries in the Education Development Index. Meanwhile, according to the Department of Education and Culture, every minute there are four children who dropped out of school. Many factors affect a high number of dropouts in Indonesia. However, the most common factor is because they did not think that going to school is more important rather than help their families to search for money and also, it is because the high cost of education that made the students cannot continue their basic education. Based on the education data in 2010, stated that there is 1.3 million children aged 7 to15 years old that are threatened of dropouts.

The importance of education should be supported and starts from the people itself, that later will be follows by the surroundings, i.e. families and surroundings and hopefully to the environment. However, if the person itself is not being supported by the families and surroundings to give them a positive brief, the flow of education will be hampered much less from any environment that leads to world of education.

B. I. Effects

Indonesia's achievement in terms of population is to be on the fourth place as a country with the largest population in the world. Whereas by large, it means not in terms of its great quality but in terms of its great quantity. Indonesia's population that is happen to be more than two hundred million people becomes a problem if it seen from the perspective of the economy and competitiveness. The problem of this large population country is occurred by the high rate of jobless people that leads to poverty, which is a classic problem in macroeconomics. When seen from the data sourced from BPS (Badan Pusat Statistik) and the Ministry of People's Welfare, it retrieved that there are more than 10 percent of the population of Indonesia, which is 29,89 million people are still in the below of the poverty line and the main factor is caused by the not evenly spread of education throughout Indonesia and also, the awareness of the people itself towards the high impact of taking the basic of education.

B. II. Recommendation to Indonesia

First of all, Indonesia needs a leader who is aware and understands the status of education in Indonesia, which needs to be fixed. The leader must be able to affirm, set and has a charisma that can be received by the people so that the vision and mission can be easily heard and together achieve it into a reality. Indonesia needs a leader that has a figure like the fourth King of Majapahit, Hayam Wuruk, where he was able to bring the Majapahit Empire to the golden age. Under the reign of Hayam Wuruk, the Majapahit Empire was able to control its power that is more or less equal to the size of Indonesia at this moment. The fact that Hayam Wuruk was able to get his highest position as a leader when he was only 16 years old, it gives a figure of a leadership that is respected by his followers so that his followers can easily go through and together build the Empire.

When the system in the central of governance of Indonesia has built strong, then they could start sending the labours experts in education or teachers to remote the system of education until the corners of the country. The labours experts in education or teachers that were sent are expected to be the role model of the intended students. Correlating into the days of Majapahit Empire, their main communication to spread awareness was to become a hero. For example, Gajah Mada, as a warlord and a very matter character in the days of the Majapahit Empire that then later was appointed as the Grand Vizier, was able to give a figure that is wanted by everyone. Similarly, the figure experts in education or teachers are expected to be the role models who are capable of emulated and desired by everyone. That way, the awareness towards the education of people will arise.

Moreover, there are some channels that could also give advantages in order for it to be optimisedly applied, for example governance, BHP (Badan Hukum Pedidikan) and also some organisations such as UNICEF and AWE (Association for World Education). These channels could also act as the supporters of Indonesia’s sustainability by achieving educational for all.

CLOSING

C. Conclusion

The undeveloped education system in Indonesia that has not evenly spread has become the seeds of the unresolved issues that are happening in this country, such as poverty. The main factors of why it happened are because first, the unmanaged of the state of governance and second, the lack of awareness of the people itself towards the importance of education. By following the path in the glorious days of Majapahit Empire, which has giving us a lot of evidence that could be followed, I believe that it could become our main inspiration in building the future of our country. Several recommendations that I have stated, including by starting to find a figure that is understands the importance of education and willing to direct the related institutions to a forward and evenly throughout the country and also by giving them the role models that they needed in order to raise the awareness of people towards the importance of education, I believe that starting from those recommendations, Indonesia will soon have an effective and successful human resources that are ready to increase the development of the country towards its maximum desired.