Designing education for modernity

 In his provoking book The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East (2008), Kishore Mahbubani believes that billions of Asians are now marching to modernity. In the 21st century, Asia will be modernized.

 It is a just a matter of time.  As an optimistic idealist, however, Mahbubani reminds us of the seven pillars of Western modernity that we should emulate, namely the free market economy, science and technology, meritocracy, pragmatism, peace culture, law enforcement and education.

 Among the seven variables, it is education that plays the most vital role. Human capital theory stresses the importance of investment in the improvement of the workforce through training in particular and formal education in general. In other words, education is the most essential part of development en route to modernity.

 The essence of a free market economy is competition and entrepreneurship. Actually, competition is also central to the success of the politician, the professional and the intellectual. A competitive society encourages people to explore and develop their potential for individual as well as collective progress.

 A meritocracy is central to the advancement of creativity and progress in society. Connection and family-based promotion, especially in public services, is antithetical to progress. Being pragmatic simply means that no particular method is claimed to be superior over the others. In brief, it means making a series of informed decisions to be practical yet beneficial.

 Peace culture is a prerequisite for continuous development. In developing countries, progress is often disrupted by recurring conflict.

 This kind of scenario is now rare in Europe, but is still rampant in developing countries. Such conflict often causes long-lasting psychological barricades that are difficult to remove.

 The rule of law guides how people should operate in a society. Law enforcement is essential for maintaining progress. In a country where laws are not fully enforced, the fruits of development are in the hands of a small fraction of society. As a result, there is no collective ownership of development.

 Mindful of Mahbubani’s thesis of Asia’s imminent modernity, educators and teachers need to ask whether the existing curriculum is effective enough to implement the seven pillars of modernity in this country. How can those pillars be incorporated into the curriculum and implemented in daily life?

 Education teaches students science and technology, but that is not enough to develop modernity. Developing these pillars implies imparting those values to be applied in daily life. Universities are often criticized for over teaching content to students, ignoring the fact that such content shortly becomes obsolete or irrelevant.

 The corollary is that the skills to be taught to students should be transferable to ever-changing situations. Teachers and professors would have failed if they used learning processes that did not impact on life-long learning.

 Teaching for the 21st century is about providing students basic skills and values for living in a knowledge-based society.

 The four principles of a knowledge-based society are as follows. First, life-long learning. Muslims would readily agree with this principle, because it is in line with the Prophet Muhammad’s saying that man should learn from the cradle to the grave. Educators should impress upon students a genuine curiosity for learning new things throughout life.

 Second, independent learning. Students should be taught to assume greater personal responsibility for their own learning. Crucial for independent learning is critical and creative thinking skills. Critical people have tendencies to anticipate new problems and know how to cope with them.

 Third is problem-based learning. Our life is flooded with new problems. Traditional education programs are preoccupied with content, while in reality, life outside schools offers us problems rather than content. The curriculum should be redesigned to provide students with reasoning skills and problem-solving skills.

 A problem-based approach to the curriculum is also experience-based.  Learning is coach-mediated rather than teacher-directed. Students are problem solvers rather than knowledge recipients.

 Clearly, the role of teachers is not about knowledge delivery, but about collaborating with students in creating knowledge. In other words, students are treated as novice knowledge constructors.

 Fourth, learning from multiple sources and resources. Traditionally, teachers used to be a major and authoritative source of knowledge. They should realize that nowadays students learn things faster from multiple sources. These sources are infinite and beyond comparison. The main job of today’s teacher is not to provide knowledge, but to help students filter the knowledge they are exposed to.

 Educational institutions are challenged to shift the paradigm from an “application of theory model” to a problem-based model.

 The current practice is to provide prospective teachers with theory and ways of teaching through PPL or program pengalaman lapangan. Trainee teachers in most cases feel underprepared for life in the classroom.

 Normally in Indonesia, students do PPL in the eighth semester for three to four months, which is far from sufficient for fully understanding day-to-day problems in school.

 By way of comparison, in England and Japan prospective teachers undergo PPL earlier, namely in the first or second semester. As a result, they experience school culture longer and therefore know how to come to terms with school problems.

 Education is the most effective way of modernizing the nation. We need teachers who have mastered not only the subject matter (pedagogy), but also have the competence to inculcate students with the values and character to survive an ever-changing society. For that reason, teacher education programs should be critically reviewed for continuous improvement

A Chaedar Alwasilah ; 

A Professor at the Indonesian Education University (UPI), Bandung and The Author of Pokoknya Rekayasa Literasi (2012)

JAKARTA POST, 02 Maret 2013

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