Education system yet to live up to promise
(Source: The Jakarta Post, Jakarta, Friday, 02 May 2008)

Dubbed the black pearl of the archipelago, Papua sprang a surprise in 2004 when one of its teenagers won a prestigious international scientific award.

The prize, Poland's First Step to a Nobel Prize in Physics (FSNPP), has so far eluded students in the far more developed areas of Indonesia.

This unprecedented achievement repeated itself the following year when another Papuan student won the prize, showing the rest of the nation that the poverty- and illiteracy-ridden province has plenty of scientific talent in store.

Both Septinus George Saa and Anike Nelce Bowaire represent a paradox of the country's education system.

Papua has long been neglected, although its bountiful natural resources have continued to contribute to state revenue. Poverty has denied thousands of Papuan children access to education, even after the province was granted special autonomy status in 2001 and consequently earned trillions of rupiah in development funding.

There have been numerous reports of schools in remote Papua hinterlands that could not administer learning activities due to the absence of teachers.

The Papua government has allocated a mere Rp 228.72 billion (US$24.85 million), or 4.19 percent of the provincial budget of Rp 5.45 trillion, for education this year, far from the mandatory 20 percent stipulated in the Constitution. The budget was passed despite the local government's ambitious plan to provide free education for all, which included recruitment of 3,000 teachers.

Education in Papua mirrors the state of national education, which has long been overlooked, if not neglected, by the country's policy-makers. Worse yet, education has been reduced to a bargaining chip for political power holders.

More than six decades after independence, the country is confronted with the fact that the national education system has not improved significantly from the days when its founding fathers envisioned an Indonesia that "enlightens the life of the nation" when they formulated the 1945 Constitution.

The founding fathers deemed education an inseparable part of the nation-building process to achieve the goal of a free, independent, just and prosperous society.

Many hold the view that the national education system has not produced quality generations that could rival those of the early period of independence, who were in fact the product of an education system under the colonial government.

But nobody would argue that there is a wide gap between the ideal education system envisaged by the founding fathers and the reality on the ground today.

Statistics show this gap: Indonesia ranked 107th on the Human Development Index in the UNDP Human Development Report 2007/2008, below Singapore (25th), South Korea (26th), Malaysia (63rd), Thailand (78th), the Philippines (90th) and Vietnam (105th). Many of these countries gained independence long after Indonesia, which only suggests that Indonesia has wasted time in the pursuit of its founding fathers' dreams.

That Indonesia is lagging behind other countries in terms of commitment to education poses an imminent danger. In the wake of globalization, less educated Indonesia will be left behind in the fast changing world. Worse yet, globalization will deprive it of its most precious possession -- its independence. With more than two-thirds of the country's workforce having only a primary education, Indonesia lacks bargaining power in global competition and is vulnerable to falling to the disadvantageous status of a "nation of coolies".

A corrupt mentality, including poor governance, has exacerbated the challenges to promoting education as the country's primary goal.

The Supreme Audit Agency found in the second semester of 2005 that the Education Ministry followed only Religious Affairs Ministry in terms of most budgetary irregularities.

In response to the findings, the Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) said the Education Ministry lacked the political will to fight corruption in the first place, as evident in the policy formulation which did not involve the public.

The ICW said that the ministry emphasized image building in its strategic planning for 2004-2009, instead of promoting transparency and providing the public with access to education data, further demonstrated its reluctance to act against corruption.

Transparency International (TI), the international corruption watchdog, has found that corruption in education can take many forms: bribes paid by parents to teachers to ensure good grades and examination results; bribes paid by teachers to public officials to get preferred postings and promotions; and embezzlement of funds allocated to purchase teaching materials or to build schools.

Corruption in this sector can also mean the bypassing of criteria in the approval of school establishment and accreditation, cronyism and nepotism in procurement and teacher appointments, resulting in "ghost teachers" or the selling of information on exams.

A survey conducted by TI revealed that education was among the top 10 sectors most prone to corruption anywhere in the world.

Corruption in education is particularly damaging as it endangers a country's social, economic and political future. Many believe it's more detrimental than corruption in other sectors because of its long-term effects. Furthermore, it threatens the equal access, quantity and quality of education.

Its consequences are particularly harsh for the poor who, without access to education or with no alternative but low-quality education, have little chance of escape from a life of poverty. Corruption undermines one of the major aims of education, which is to produce citizens who respect the law and human rights.

While everyone agrees that education is the key to freeing the nation from poverty, economic dependence and tyranny, there have been debates as to how education reform should begin.

The political will that resulted in the mandatory 20 percent budget allocation for education is a good start. The problems now are how to realize it and then how to distribute it.