Diaspora, ‘brain drain’ and education

The recent Congress of Indonesian Diaspora focused on the collaborations between Indonesia and diasporic Indonesian communities around the world. An article published in The Jakarta Post on Aug. 20, 2013, lauds this conference because collaborations between the Indonesian government, various business circles and diasporic communities may boost Indonesia’s economy. 

A strong emphasis is placed on pulang kampung or “going home”. The conference organizers may have chosen this theme after careful consideration on the assumption that Indonesian communities living abroad may someday return to their homeland, or to contributing in their own ways to their country of origin.

The ties that bind all Indonesians living in Indonesia and abroad are sinuous and based on a concept that Benedict Anderson calls “imagined communities”. In his theory of nationhood, Anderson posits that nations are drawn together in their collective memory of a shared past, to truly “believe in” their nation and, therefore, to act in its interests. In this respect, history and rituals are essential to instill nationalist pride in Indonesian citizens.

In every country, the flag is symbolic of a nation. It represents a country at the United Nations and is especially significant as a beacon of independence for countries with a colonial past such as Indonesia. This flag is flown during solemn ceremonies across the country during our Aug. 17 Independence Day celebrations, from kindergartens to a lavish event at the Presidential Palace. Similar ceremonies are also conducted every Monday at national schools around the country.

Such ceremonies, however, are not enough. Pride in being Indonesian can only be created through education and a personal sense of belonging to a country that is also respected internationally. As a child growing up in Indonesia, I remember being taught to recite the state ideology of Pancasila (belief in one supreme God, humanism, nationalism, popular sovereignty and social justice) and our national motto of Bhinneka Tunggal Ika (Unity in Diversity). 

However, a deeper understanding and practical application of these principles was not emphasized in the schools that I attended.

School children and all Indonesian citizens should understand that these unifying principles are crucial to bringing our diverse country together. Our country’s diverse population, rich natural resources and cultural heritage are key aspects that have drawn international attention to this country.

As it is commonly understood, our younger generation is more enamored with popular culture, Facebook and Twitter rather than exploring the rich resources that our country has to offer. Members of our younger generation, who may go abroad to study or begin their careers abroad, need to be armed with this significant knowledge to help promote our country, and to draw them back to Indonesia after they have obtained education and experience overseas. Even if they choose to stay abroad as members of Indonesian diasporic communities, their pride in their country of origin will allow them to maintain close political, economic and social ties with Indonesia.

Opportunities in Indonesia for our diaporic student communities should also be an important factor for the government to focus on in order to reduce a “brain drain”. According to Professor Yohannes Surya, an educator who has groomed our country’s best minds to win various medals in physics and mathematics Olympiads, Indonesia is thriving in brilliant young minds that need to maximize their potential to help build Indonesia’s science and technology sectors.

Surya, himself a brilliant physicist, went on to pursue a master’s and doctorate in physics at the College of William and Mary in the United States after obtaining his undergraduate degree at the University of Indonesia (UI) in 1986. He attained his postgraduate degrees in 1990 and 1994, respectively, and received the highest honors possible for both.

Having completed his tertiary education, Surya began working as a consultant in theoretical physics at the US Nuclear Physics Center in Virginia. Although this work earned him a green card to stay in the US as a permanent resident, he decided to return to Indonesia.

Contrary to the prevailing belief that those who graduate overseas tend to stay abroad, Surya claimed that most scientists who obtained their degrees abroad “long to return to Indonesia, provided that they can contribute their skills and research to help their country”.

One of his former students, Hendra Kwee, who participated in the International Physics Olympiad in 1997 and earned his doctorate in 2007 from the College of William and Mary, is now back in Indonesia to train the current Indonesian physics team for the Olympiad. Others like him would be committed to returning to their homeland when there were laboratories and research centers for them to develop and contribute their skills, he added.

What Surya and the nation’s other scientists need now is public support to make his dreams a reality. To his satisfaction, the Education and Culture Ministry has pledged to provide scholarships for the winners of the International Physics Olympiad. Other initiatives from the private sector will also encourage these exceptional students to return to their homeland.

As Indonesia becomes an important global economic player, it is necessary for the government to gear its efforts toward educating the nation and creating opportunities for Indonesia’s best and brightest minds that make up part of the Indonesian diasporic communities. 

After all, as Professor Surya reminded us, “Education is the key to a nation’s advancement. These students deserve the attention and support of various organizations, corporations and the government. In time, they will definitely push Indonesia to the forefront of science and technology.

Aimee Darwis ;  

The writer, who earned her PhD in media studies at New York University, lectures at the University of Indonesia’s departments of communications and humanities. She is currently completing a course at Lemhannas

JAKARTA POST, 21 Agustus 2013

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Educating future Indonesians

A nation’s future of sustained economic growth depends very much on the quality of its human resources, and this is determined by the quality of education. 

Studies have also shown that education is a crucial factor in reducing income inequality, as can be seen in many Latin American countries. Investment in a nation’s education takes 10 to 15 years for a country to reap the benefits.

Since 2008, thanks to a constitutional amendment, spending on education has been set at 20 percent of the total budget. 

The budget for education in 2013 is nearly U$6 billion, which makes education one of the top seven recipients of state budget funds. Currently, there are approximately 59 million students, 3 million teachers and 330,000 schools.

So what does the Education and Culture Ministry do with a whopping $6 billion? Education and Culture Minister Mohammad Nuh, said in February this year that in 2007, 80 percent of the children who entered primary school graduated, but out of this number only 61 percent continued on to junior high. 

The minister went on to say that, of those who did enter junior high school, only 48 percent completed this stage of schooling and of this number only 21 percent continued to senior high. 

Of this 21 percent, only 10 percent graduated. Of the 10 percent who graduated, only 1.4 percent undertook tertiary education.

It was safe for the minister to talk about numbers in 2007, it was six years ago and a long time before he became education and culture minister. 

During the last decade, primary education enrolment rates have been impressive.

There is, however, more to education than just enrolment! Has the proportion of drop-outs also decreased dramatically since 2007?

Given that we are entering a demographic bonus, where there will be a large number of youths, which should be able to fuel our economic growth, have the enrolments produced a workforce that is now developing our economy?

A report released by the World Bank in March this year entitled Spending More or Spending Better: Improving Education Financing in Indonesia finds that, despite the large increase in education spending, the quality has not improved. 

According to the report, Indonesia’s performance in international tests has been disappointing; in fact, the country’s general scores were at the bottom of international assessments of learning achievements.

Apparently, when eighth grade Indonesian students were tested through Trends in International Mathematics and Science Studies (TIMSS), which is an international benchmark for mathematics and science, they performed significantly worse than students from Thailand and Malaysia.

The TIMSS test showed that not only are average scores low but that the share of students achieving the highest levels of performance is also very small, with only the top 20 percent of performers in Indonesia achieving at least an intermediate score. 

Only 3 percent achieved scores at the highest level and no students scored at the advanced level. In contrast, almost 50 percent of students in Thailand and Malaysia achieved at least the intermediate level, while 10 percent achieved high benchmarks and 1 percent achieved advanced levels.

The results show that average scores in 2003 and 2009 are not statistically very different in mathematics and science. Only reading scores improved. Even more worrying is the fact that, when researchers broke down results by socio-economic deciles, the inequality in access to quality education was glaringly obvious.

There was a significant difference in performance between the richest and poorest students in mathematics. Poor students performed significantly worse than rich students, and this difference has not improved since 2003.

So, where did all the money go? The same report found that a large share of the massive increase went to pay teachers’ salaries and teachers’ certification allowances. 

The increase in spending on salaries was driven by a fast increase in the total number of teachers, which continues to increase despite Indonesia already having one of the lowest student-teacher ratios in the world.

The teacher certification program almost doubled the pay of certified teachers through an allowance equivalent to a teacher’s basic pay. This allowance absorbed more than 2 percent of the state budget in 2009, even though only 30 percent of teachers were certified.

It is convenient to blame decentralization. One intrinsic problem is the attitude of our bureaucracy to the notion of public service. There is even rejection among much of the bureaucracy of the basic principle that the main task of civil servants is to serve the community that pays their wages.

Bureaucrats have been smart in serving whoever their masters are, so that their privileges as civil servants remain intact. With this framework of thinking, it is easy to see how budgets are used mainly for operational costs rather than servicing the community.

Political elites must agree to stop playing politics with education and to take education out of the political horse trading that takes place when new cabinets are formed. 

The minister in charge needs to be competent and not politically well connected just because a political party was promised the job for agreeing to be in the government’s coalition. This approach has cost us dearly!

We have a Master Plan for Acceleration and Expansion of Indonesian Economic Development (MP3EI), so why not have a Master Plan for Acceleration and Expansion of Indonesian Educational Development? 

Indonesia needs bridges and roads, but if we are to develop our economy, we desperately need skilled human resources. If we can plan infrastructure building for the next 15 years, why can we not do it for education when so much depends on it? 

If not, we will be importing doctors and engineers and continuing to export migrant workers (TKI).

Ratih Hardjono  ;   

A Former Journalist, Secretary-General of the Indonesian Community for Democracy (KID); She was a recipient of the Nieman Fellowship for Journalism at Harvard University, in the class of 1994

JAKARTA POST, 16 Juli 2013

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Exam and the death of the sound mind

   In front of their friends and parents, the education specialist called the students one-by-one. Every student got a five or 10 minute healing procession. Acting like a hypnotist, or more precisely, like a traditional shaman, he began by asking each of them to repeat what he recited, which comprised Islamic sacred words arranged in a random order.

 After making sure of each student’s mesmerization, he started to investigate (or make the students confess), asking questions about the mistakes they committed — mainly related to the preparations for the upcoming national exams — and making them pledge not to repeat the mistakes again and to better themselves in the future.

 In a normal situation, when there is no pressure such as the obligation to pass the National Exams, I would not be sure that the students would willingly follow the above practice.

  First, public interrogation in front of friends, parents and other spectators is actually an embarrassment. This would be even more keenly felt by teenagers, who often feel awkward among their friends or other people.

 Second, while some or many of them seemed to accept the practice, we should be aware of behavioral deviation phenomena, such as masochism or a feeling of excitement when a person is physically or psychologically abused.

 At the same time, recalling the fact that our children are mentally socially constructed to a certain extent, we must be more critical with the emerging “religious” practice at almost all schools called muhasabah, or retreat, which is intended to make them better prepared before the National Exams.

 Listening to their answers of why they went on retreat, many of the students have said that they would be able to answer exam questions more easily because they were the hands of God.

 Many think that it can be an instant way out of their laziness problem or learning disorders.

 In fact, we know, positive knowledge of science, math, or languages can only be acquired through learning, reasoning and experiencing. The knowledge is not implanted because of the mercy of God because of their piety.

 Many of the students, as well as their teachers, think that a long and often painful process of learning is not necessary; that relentless effort will eventually surrender to the iron fist of fortune. Or else, they are made believe that the process is less necessary than the end result. Consequently, dishonesty materializes in form of shortcuts such as cheating or teachers helping their students to pass the exams illegally.

 To this point, while the concept of the National Exams is not wrong, the practices that have evolved before and after their implementation are.

 On one hand, the process is intended to ensure a quality education for all Indonesian children. Yet on the other hand, the process lends itself to the assassination of logical and reasoning ability in students.

 Back to the story of the education shaman. We have to mention that the National Exams are a blessing for him. He can enjoy more money than what is received by an ordinary teacher in a month.

 He need only memorized a few sacred words, possess a rhetoric ability and build connections with school principals.

 The shaman would never think that the parents have to pay more than their ordinary tuition fees because of the preparations for the National Exams — a fund-raising practice that has been prohibited.

 It is simply because they think like real businessmen without sufficient empathy for the suffering of the others.

 Talking to some teachers, I promised that I would never let my children experience the practice. I believe that once sound minds are interfered with by illogical or unreasonable activities, they might lose their passion to learn and experience normally.

 Similarly, their consciences will be trimmed down gradually once they are accustomed to enjoying instant or effortless success.

 Students who have been forced to do unreasonable things by the people who fear their own failures should have a forgiving heart. Forget the embarrassing public confession and do not let it linger your memory. Just believe in yourself and never compromise your integrity.

Khairil Azhar  ;  

A School Manager and A Researcher at the Paramadina Foundation

JAKARTA POST, 13 April 2013

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Questioning autonomy in higher education

   The recent debate on a judicial review filed with the Constitutional Court against Law No. 12/ 2012 on higher education has spawned concerns among the country’s intellectuals over the autonomy of higher education. The law has been contested by six students from Andalas University who said that their access to university had been impeded.

 If the Constitutional Court annuls this law, it is feared that the autonomy of higher education in Indonesia will be at stake.

 The concern over the autonomy of higher education is reminiscent of the previous revocation of Law on legal educational institutions (BHP), which at that time similarly sparked heated debate among academics and education pundits.

 While the notion of autonomy in higher education has become a popular catchphrase, it is has never been perceived with uniformity. There is no such consensus, even among intellectuals, as to what constitutes autonomy in higher education.

 The notion of autonomy, unless implemented with precision, can be subject to semantic manipulations that are at the whims of the power holders of educational institutions. If related to an institutional and bureaucratic context, it is clearly not a neutral word. It is a word loaded with ulterior meanings.

 Construed from the perspective of the technocratic logic of an educational institution, autonomy signifies the idea of full control in managing universities and in designing policies related to educational activities.

 Autonomy in this sense tries to disconnect the management of an institution from state intervention.

 Yet, autonomous educational institutions are not free from flaws. The policies they impose may not benefit stakeholders (especially students) and are not amendable to their interest and needs, as these policies are the by-products of ideological and institutional logic to which educational staff, students, and teachers must accede.

 It is no surprise that clashes — which often end in violence — between university rectors and students occurred in many, if not most, universities.

 Autonomy, however, can be understood from the perspective of a pure academic logic, which emphasizes the spirit of lehrfreiheit (freedom to teach) and lernfreiheit (freedom to learn) — the well-known slogan long preserved by the University of Berlin. Educational institutions should be autonomous under this perspective, in that academic freedom is nurtured and the habits of mind such as inquisitiveness, persistence, creativity, responsibility, and imagination are highly respected.

 In contrast to the former notion of autonomy, which has the tendency of favoring the rigidity of technocratic reasoning and ideology, the latter notion allows fluidity and flexibility, and is not predetermined and imposed upon those who are undertaking educational activities.

 It seems that the imminent annulment of the higher education law may considerably dilute the autonomy (in the former sense) of higher education, as has been enthusiastically voiced by the country’s intellectuals.

 The concern here is plausible because without the law, autonomy with the technocratic logic doesn’t hold sway and has no mutability in the presence of conflict and disruption.

 It is resistant to changes and by hook or crook tries to conserve constancy for the sake of maintaining the vested interests and the constellation of structural power of elites in educational institution.

 But autonomy from the perspective of the academic logic is fluid, not seeing things as always remaining constant in different circumstances. With or without the law, it may not be distorted and can surely withstand efforts which will disrupt it. Because it valorizes the habits of mind, any disruption will be appropriated rather than summarily rejected.

 Thus, given the vacuous notion of autonomy, the bogey of losing autonomy of higher education should by no means cause us to succumb to unnecessary and counterproductive politics of education and to lose sight of the long-standing academic beacon of lehrfreiheit and lernfreiheit, which have been instilled into those undertaking educational activities in most universities in the US and European countries.

 On the face of it, it would be much more productive if we intellectuals were concerned instead over how the tradition of nurturing the habits of mind among our students can be sustained rather than be overwhelmed by the apprehension of the judicial review of higher education law.

Setiono Sugiharto ; 

An Associate Professor at Atma Jaya Catholic University,

Chief Editor of the Indonesian Journal of English Language Teaching

JAKARTA POST, 30 Maret 2013

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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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Pendidikan Hak Asasi Manusia

INDONESIA dikenal sebagai bangsa yang kaya akan keberagaman suku, bangsa, budaya, bahasa, agama, dan sebagainya. Kekayaan multikultural itu mestinya menjadi aset bagi pembangunan bangsa. Sayangnya, kemajemukan justru lebih sering diwarnai hiruk-pikuk konflik dan dilumuri tetesan darah anak bangsa.

Benar, sepanjang sejarah bangsa ini, konflik multikultural yang berlatar ras, etnik, ekonomi, agama, sosial, dan politik kerap terjadi di Indonesia, terutama dalam 10 tahun terakhir. Konflik multikultural itu tidak hanya telah mencederai kemerdekaan, nilai-nilai keadilan, persamaan martabat, hak hidup bebas, hak menyembah beda Tuhan, dan sebagainya. Iklim saling curiga, syak wasangka, ketidakpercayaan, kemarahan, dan kekecewaan lebih sering membalut di samping derita politik yang tidak ada habisnya.

Pada kondisi demikian, pendidikan hak asasi manusia (HAM) mendesak untuk dihidupkan lagi. Pertanyaannya kemudian, apa yang dimaksud dengan pendidikan HAM? Bagaimana strategi implementasinya di sekolah?

HAM merupakan hak yang dimiliki dan diperoleh semenjak manusia terlahir ke dunia (given). Hak tersebut bersifat asasi, umum (universal), dan dimiliki setiap manusia tanpa mengindahkan perbedaan kelamin, status sosial, agama, harta benda, dan sebagainya. Berdasarkan konsep HAM itu, setiap manusia berhak mengembangkan cita-cita, bakat (potensi), dan kemampuan yang dimiliknya.

Kesepakatan universal tentang nilai-nilai HAM mulanya tertuang dalam Deklarasi Universal Hak-Hak Asasi Manusia (Universal Declaration of Human Rights) pada 10 Desember 1948. Momentum itulah yang setiap tahun diperingati sebagai Hari HAM Sedunia. Selanjutnya, PBB melalui Dewan HAM menginstruksikan kepada negara-negara anggota untuk menegakkan HAM warga mereka tanpa pandang bulu.

Upaya penegakan HAM selanjutnya mendapat dukungan penuh dari negara-negara penganut demokrasi yang kebetulan telah memiliki pemerintahan maju dan kondusif. Inggris, misalnya, diterima parlemen pada 1968 dengan perjuangan Bill of Rights mereka. Prancis juga melakukan upaya yang sama dengan Declaration des Droits de I’homme et du Citoyen (Pernyataan Hak Asasi dan Warga Negara) pada 1789.

HAM Pendidikan

Di Indonesia, upaya penegakan HAM tertuang dalam Pasal 12 Undang-Undang (UU) Nomor 39 Tahun 1999 tentang HAM dan UU Nomor 23 Tahun 2002 tentang Perlindungan Anak. Dalam UU itu disebutkan, setiap orang berhak atas perlindungan bagi pengembangan pribadinya untuk memperoleh pendidikan, mencerdaskan dirinya, dan meningkatkan kualitas hidupnya agar menjadi manusia yang beriman, bertakwa, bertanggung jawab, berakhlak mulia, bahagia, dan sejahtera sesuai dengan hak asasi manusia.

Berdasarkan kedua UU itu, tugas negara ialah melindungi, memberikan kesempatan, dan memfasilitasi hak asasi pendidikan atas warganya. Pendek kata, setiap orang berhak mendapat pendidikan. Pendidikan harus gratis, setidaknya untuk tingkat sekolah rendah dan pendidikan dasar. Pendidikan rendah harus diwajibkan. Pendidikan harus ditujukan ke arah perkembangan pribadi yang seluas-luasnya serta memperkukuh rasa penghargaan terhadap hak-hak manusia dan kebebasan asasi.

HAM pendidikan mestinya tidak saja dilihat dari sisi kualitas, tetapi juga akses terbuka dengan mudah dan murah bagi sebagian besar masyarakat Indonesia. Selama ini hanya golongan berada yang mampu mengenyam pendidikan, sedangkan masyarakat miskin hanya mampu melihat dari luar. Fenomena demikian sering kita tonton dalam berbagai film layar kaca; rakyat miskin hanya mampu berpikir bagaimana bisa bertahan hidup, bukan bagaimana bisa sekolah apalagi kuliah. Pendidikan, dengan meminjam istilah Denny Ardiansyah (2009), telah menjelma menjadi barang `amat mewah (luks)' yang hanya bisa dinikmati kaum berduit. Seakan di setiap pintu sekolah atau kampus kita tertempel kalimat, `Hanya untuk orang kaya!'

Rendahnya ketersediaan akses itu memicu terampasnya HAM pendidikan masyarakat miskin. Padahal, pendidikan merupakan aset penting sebuah bangsa. Pendidikan berkualitas akan serta-merta melahirkan kemajuan dan peradaban bangsa. Sebaliknya, pendidikan yang buruk akan berimplikasi negatif bagi jalannya roda pemerintahan dan ketersediaan partisipasi publik yang cerdas.

Dihidupkan Lagi?

Di sisi lain, kesadaran generasi muda khususnya peserta didik akan HAM perlu lebih ditingkatkan lagi. Benar selama ini pengetahuan tentang HAM sudah tersosialisasi lewat pelajaran PKn atau tayangan di media massa. Namun, hal itu belum cukup memberikan pencerahan bagi siswa akan urgensi HAM. Pengetahuan akan HAM yang baik hanya bisa didapat optimal melalui pendidikan di sekolah. Pengetahuan akan HAM yang memadai akan menimbulkan kesa daran peserta didik terhadap hak-hak mereka, orang lain, masyarakat, dan bangsa.

Sebenarnya, pada 2006 lalu Departemen Pendidikan Nasional (Depdiknas) telah menerbitkan buku pendidikan berbasis HAM. Pendidikan berbasis HAM menjadi penting bagi negara kita yang memiliki pengalaman panjang dengan pelanggaran HAM, diskriminasi ras dan etnik, dan minim toleransi terhadap perbedaan.

Sayangnya, pendidikan HAM belum menjadi sesuatu yang penting bagi pemerintah kita. Akibatnya, pendidikan HAM seperti kehilangan gaungnya lagi lantaran tertutupi oleh kebijakan-kebijakan baru di bidang pendidikan.

Pendidikan HAM (human rights education), menurut Ministry of Education (MoE) Taiwan (2003), ialah mendidik setiap individu untuk dapat memperjuangkan hak-haknya sekaligus untuk dapat menghargai hak-hak orang lain. Sang individu diharapkan dapat membangun sebuah budaya HAM dan peduli dengan pembangunan sosial, budaya, politik masyarakatnya, serta mengarahkan pembangunan tersebut ke keadilan.

Pendapat lain menyebutkan pendidikan HAM merupakan sebuah human rights learning, yaitu suatu proses untuk memodifikasi pengetahuan, keterampilan, dan kebiasaan yang telah eksis melalui pengalaman, praktik, dan latihan-latihan. Adapun pendidikan merupakan proses belajar yang berlokasi di sekolah ataupun lingkungan seperti sekolah; atau dalam arti luas merupakan proses transmisi nilai-nilai dan pengetahuan yang telah terakumulasi dalam suatu masyarakat (Pimple, 2005).

Pendekatan yang digunakan dalam pembelajaran HAM mengacu ke pedagogi kritis dan transformatif. Pedagogi kritis, tulis Tilaar (2005), ialah pendekatan pendidikan yang melihat masyarakat, pendidikan, atau persekolahan sebagai sebuah arena-arena tempat berlangsungnya kontestasi kekuasaan dan kontrol.

Kendati tidak bersifat netral dalam kontestasi tersebut, pedagogi kritis mempunyai komitmen untuk memberdayakan yang tertindas atau kelompok-kelompok yang disubordinasikan. Dalam kaitan tersebut, pedagogi kritis ialah pedagogi transformatif yang bertujuan mengubah proses pendidikan sebagai proses yang mengubah status quo dan memberikan kesadaran akan kebebasan manusia dari berbagai jenis penindasan.

Mengacu ke pedagogi kritis sebagaimana diuraikan, maka sasaran pendidikan ataupun pembelajaran HAM ialah pada transformasi sosial, baik pada level individu maupun kelompok. Transformasi di sini mencakup perubahan dalam aspek pengetahuan, keterampilan, sikap, perspektif, dan kesadaran diri (Heru Susetyo, 2009). Adapun nilai dan prinsip dasar yang mendasari pendidikan HAM antara lain persamaan, keadilan, kemerdekaan, martabat manusia, universalitas, inalienability (tak dapat dikecualikan), indivisibility (tak dapat dipisahkan), dan nondiskriminasi.

Implementasi pendidikan HAM di sekolah, sebagaimana pendidikan karakter dan pendidikan antikorupsi, dapat dilakukan melalui beberapa cara, di antaranya: 1) terintegrasi dalam pembelajaran dan 2) terintegrasi dalam pengembangan diri melalui kegiatan ekstrakurikuler.

Pendidikan HAM yang terintegrasi dalam proses pembelajaran berarti pengenalan nilai-nilai, kesadaran akan pentingnya nilai-nilai, dan penginternalisasian nilai-nilai HAM ke dalam tingkah laku peserta didik melalui proses pembelajaran; baik yang berlangsung di dalam maupun di luar kelas pada semua mata pelajaran. Dengan demikian, kegiatan pembelajaran, selain untuk menjadikan peserta didik menguasai kompetensi (materi) yang ditargetkan, juga dirancang dan dilakukan untuk menjadikan peserta didik mengenal, menyadari/peduli, dan menginternalisasi nilainilai HAM dan menjadikannya perilaku. Adapun pendidikan HAM yang terintegrasi dalam kegiatan pengembangan diri berarti berbagai hal terkait dengan HAM diimplementasikan dalam kegiatan pengembangan diri melalui kegiatan ekstrakurikuler seperti keagamaan, seni budaya, KIR, dan kepramukaan.

Dalam struktur kurikulum di sekolah kita, ada dua mata pelajaran yang terkait langsung dengan pendidikan HAM, yaitu pendidikan agama dan PKn. Selain itu, integrasi pendidikan HAM pada mata-mata pelajaran, selain pendidikan agama dan PKn yang dimaksud, lebih kepada memfasilitasi internalisasi nilai-nilai di dalam tingkah laku sehari-hari melalui proses pembelajaran dari tahapan perencanaan, pelaksanaan, dan penilaian. Pengenalan nilai-nilai sebagai pengetahuan melalui bahanbahan ajar tetap diperkenankan, tetapi bukan merupakan penekanan. Yang ditekankan atau diutamakan ialah penginternalisasian nilai-nilai melalui kegiatan-kegiatan di dalam proses pembelajaran.

Para guru sebagai aktor utama pembelajaran harus lebih mendalami hal-hal terkait dengan HAM. Tujuannya agar mereka lebih paham mengenai HAM serta bisa merancang model pembelajaran HAM yang menarik dan tidak menjemukan. Sudah saatnya pendidikan HAM dihidupkan lagi di sekolah-sekolah kita. Kita berharap generasi muda mendatang tidak gagap akan HAM sehingga apa yang menjadi hak mereka tidak terampas begitu saja oleh penguasa tanpa bisa berbuat apa-apa. Semoga.

Agus Wibowo ;  

Pemerhati Pendidikan Tinggal di Yogyakarta

MEDIA INDONESIA, 04 Februari 2013

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First RSBI, next the international undergraduate programs?

It is final that the so-called international-standard pilot project schools (RSBIs) and international-standard schools (SBIs) in Indonesia will be closed down by April 2013 (The Jakarta Post, Jan. 4, 2013).

 One of the main objections to the schools was their creation of social division among students, between the haves and the have-nots. It was too expensive for the have-nots to pay for the school fees quite apart from the fact that each of the 1,329 SBI and RSBI schools received between Rp 200 million (US$20,533) and Rp 500 million per year from the government.

 It is not necessarily right, however, to imply the high costs were caused by the use of (permit me to use the word) “Indoglish” — Indonesian English — as the primary language of instruction. In other words, one should not blame English or, rather Indoglish, as the main triggering factor for creating the social divisions among students.

 Ironically, the word expensive here should not stand alongside that pointed out by Sydney Smith (1771-1845), saying, “Avoid shame, but do not seek glory as nothing so expensive as glory.” That is why I cannot agree more when Education and Culture Minister Mohammad Nuh insisted that the SBI program had noble intentions (read “glory”), so that the minister needed to devise a new plan to keep some of the programs under the SBI plan.

 It is interesting, therefore, that the very same minister strongly believes in his integrated and thematic 2013 “nationalistic” curriculum. He even claims that it would support the character-building of students (the Post, Nov. 28, 2012). This, indeed, highlights the reality that he knows well how complicated it is to explain the meaning of education for and to Indonesians.

 Another objection to the RSBI program was also upheld by the Indonesian Constitutional Court (the Post, Jan. 8, 2013) which said that the law governing the implementation of RSBIs and SBIs, namely Article 50 (3) of the 2003 National Educational System Law, was unconstitutional since both programs provided unequal access (they discriminated against non-RSBI students) to quality education in the country.

 The list can be extended such as whether or not RSBIs gave due the importance to so-called national-character building; despite the fact that nationalism and internationalism can actually stand side by side without falling into the trap of entering into the discussion of post-colonialism, or dealing with East versus West.

 This is highlighted when on Sunday (Jan. 13), Constitutional Court (MK) chief justice Mahfud MD clarified that all schools under the program, be they public or private, had to be shut down. “The article [in the law] does not mention private or state schools,” he stated.

 The situation in Indonesia becomes more complicated as there is another reality: being unable to escape from the World Trade Organization (WTO) with its General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) since Indonesia has, understandably, decided to adopt it.

 This has to do with whether or not to disband other existing forms of RSBIs and SBIs run by (ironically) so-called state institutions and foreign educational institutions in the country. Are we not familiar with “international undergraduate programs” run by many state universities? Have we not noticed that there are also many schools with their names ending in the words “international school” in many big cities in Indonesia?

 A litany of Masya Allah! would fill the mind of those who care about the quality of education in this country. Would another Masya Allah! be heard from the Constitutional Court chief justice Mahfud MD, for example, when he realized that his ruling also meant banning the many “international undergraduate programs” in many state universities including those of his alma mater?

 Will there be, therefore, fewer and fewer Indonesians standing behind Nuh insisting that the SBI program had noble intentions so that it would be a good idea to devise new plans to keep some of the programs under other versions of the SBI plan? One of the members of our House of Representatives might, then, say, “The current legal situation in Indonesia is failing the have-nots and it is failing the people, and the government needs to consider if the criminalization of the RSBI increased the prosperity of the people”

Antonius Herujiyanto ; 

The writer is a faculty member of Sanata Dharma University Yogyakarta, teaching cross cultural understanding, literature, and philosophy of science. He is also editor in chief of LLT Journal and has been a BBC M correspondent since 2003

JAKARTA POST, 27 Januari 2013

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