Taking The Education Gamble
Education and Culture Minister Nadiem Makarim acknowledged up front that he is not an expert on education, but claimed to be a fast learner. Therefore, the education community doesn\'t expect too much.
In general, it is better to take a wait-and-see stance; we will be grateful that the new minister does not make a fatal mistake. A flat public expectation like this is actually a favorable starting point. Nadiem is not burdened with the problem of catching up immediately, so there is no need to overcompensate with a counterproductive demonstration.
Wearing casual dress to the inauguration of a rector has risked sending a mixed signal as the education minister. The implicit message is: "Show content (quality), not formality through packaging." The problem is that the message was delivered with the wrong content and context to collide with the basic principles of education. Two of UNESCO\'s four pillars of education declares that education provides a vehicle for learning to live together as well as learning to be.
The master of Indonesian education, Ki Hadjar Dewantara, underlined that education was double-pronged learning process to become a human being: understanding oneself and understanding one’s environment. Inwardly, education must help students recognize who they are as "special manifestations" (differentiation) of nature. Outwardly, education must help students identify their privileged space among the balance and continuum of the great cosmos so that personal privilege does not cause chaos or disorder.
Pancasila takes the middle path of the wisdom of "Unity in Diversity": recognizing diversity/differences while trying to establish common ground/unity.
Life skills education, as Emile Durkheim explained, also reminds humans to place themselves in two domains: the profane and the sacred. This is also relevant to civic education. The mutual cooperation espoused in Pancasila calls for a national sociability that can overcome extreme individualism and ultra-socialism (totalitarianism). In a highly pluralistic society, too much emphasis on individualism and individual differences hinders national integration; while hindering individual aspirations and differences through totalitarian goals can kill the wealth of potentiality and creativity. Pancasila takes the middle path of the wisdom of "Unity in Diversity": recognizing diversity/differences while trying to establish common ground/unity.
Individuals and communities can still develop the particularity of their own identities, norms and ideologies through "inter-individual" associations in their private sphere (family) and communities. However, in the "inter-social" association of the public sphere, all individuals and groups must adhere to the identity, norms, and nationality ideology of togetherness as a meeting point.
The weakest link
As a result, eccentric self-expression should not distort substance. If the substance gets the attention and not the sensation that diverts the public from the main issue, then the strategy for educational
The target must be on the weakest link, which can be identified through assessing the educational policies to date and looking at the experiences of other nations.
transformation must be able to focus on the correspondence between aspirations and capabilities. Five years is not a long time for managing change. Unmeasurable deconstruction must be avoided, as it is difficult to rebuild. In this Reform Era, with no guarantee of continuity in the agenda from regime to regime, the next minister may not necessarily want to continue the previous minister’s demolition approach. Therefore, careful consideration is needed to determine change that is "limited" but has a significant impact. The target must be on the weakest link, which can be identified through assessing the educational policies to date and looking at the experiences of other nations.
In The Politics of Structural Education Reform (2008), Keith A. Nitta shows the shifting trend in the educational policies of several countries. Education is traditionally seen as a domestic issue. Policy decisions about what, who, how and where education is provided are determined by considering the history, culture, norms and political situation of each country. However, educational management has been shifting since the 1990s as a result of globalization. The global change in the education regime is driven by a general belief that failure at school can threaten global competitiveness, the widespread acceptance of New Public Management (NPM) and lead to weakening and fragmentation in education interest groups. Several countries have adopted the best elements of other countries that have similar education policies.
The similarity between the two countries is that education specialists dominate their education systems: elite education bureaucrats, legislators who specialize in education and education interest groups, especially teachers unions. Since the 1990s, the countries have both restructured their education systems. In 1994, the US federal government applied a national education policy for the first time to states and districts. The Goals 2000: Educate America Act and the Improving America’s Schools Act require US states to apply curricular standards to all public schools and assess student performance based on those standards. In 2002, the federal government adopted the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, which requires US states to assess student performance and hold schools accountable for student performance.
The policy also provided education ministry bureaucrats an opportunity to set up national student achievement tests and an independent school evaluation system.
In contrast, the Japanese government began implementing a policy of deregulating and decentralizing education. The Educational Reform Program of 1997 permitted optional programs at public schools and secondary schools for the first time. In 2004, the Trinity Reform decentralized control over billions of dollars in national education funds to the provincial government. The policy also provided education ministry bureaucrats an opportunity to set up national student achievement tests and an independent school evaluation system.
Therefore, global trends in educational management are leading to broader participation by appropriately dividing the roles between central and regional governments, between government and the private sector and among stakeholders, establishing a curriculum outline that incorporates compulsory and elective classes, and combining a standardized national test for student achievement with independent school evaluation.
Under the influence of NPM, structural reform in education has tended to reduce attention to matters of "inputs" (money, facilities, number of teachers and students, curriculum and resources), and instead increased efforts to improve education by focusing on performance and redistributing authority. The assumption is that education will develop if the government holds schools tightly to their accountability for student performance, but relaxes curricular management to encourage local innovation.
The way to do this is by requiring the schools to be responsible for results, not inputs. Thus, the government regulates school performance strictly, but not resources and processes. Schools must be made accountable through an evaluation system based on standardized exams and a centralized incentive system, not market competition.
Looking from this angle, the transformative step in the formulation of our education policy has not been bad. An important benchmark of transformation is Law No. 23/2014 on Regional Governments, which replaced Law No. 32/2004. In relation to the education policy, this law anticipates the need for a framework of broader participation by dividing up the authorities of the central, provincial and regency/municipal governments. The education regime has also revised the national exam policy from a graduation requirement into an indicator of national achievement in education, and has combined this with an independent school evaluation system.
The weak points are in the execution and follow-up. For example, there is almost no follow-up once the national exam results have been determined, such as what kind of affirmation policy that should be given to regions/schools that score below the national standards. To accelerate improvements in the quality of schools in underdeveloped areas, we can imitate the Finnish and Japanese models. In poor, underdeveloped regions, teachers have fewer students than in rich, developed regions. This is the secret as to why distribution of quality education is better in Finland and Japan. The reverse treatment even occurs in the US, which results in an increasingly sharp rich-poor gap (Diamond, 2019).
This is the weakest link and must be targeted.
Law No. 23/2014 allows this; it now depends on execution and follow-up. The more serious problem is that Indonesia is still struggling with its education policy in matters of input, not performance. A change in curriculum occurs with nearly every appointment of a new minister, coming one after the other to place the burden on teachers (schools) to manage resources and administration. This is the weakest link and must be targeted.
Policy focus
If we want to improve performance by making limited changes with a big impact, the improvements must start with restructuring basic education. Like a tree, the roots are the center of growth, as with human development. The solution to the backwardness of our educational outcomes must begin by strengthening basic education. As per its name, basic education must provide the basic skills to power the growth of knowledge-hungry, critical, analytical, character-building, creative learners. These basic skills include activities in basic thinking, affective learning, creativity and sports.
Basic thinking is developed by learning to read, count, speak, listen, write and research. Reading is more than about literacy or just reading textbooks. Reading is a functional skill that is applied since elementary school. Early reading skills and habits make it easier for children to explore science beyond school lessons.
Besides reading, students must learn how to count. There is no need to give students complicated mathematics problems in the first six years of basic education. Finland, which has great educational achievements, has started eliminating mathematics from elementary education. At this level, basic arithmetic is sufficient as a life skill, a skill that is applied directly in life. Mathematics may be introduced in the seventh grade. Reading must be combined with writing. Writing is not to be placed in a corner of language classes, but should be a separate subject that is integrated with all other subjects.
Fostering a desire to write will in turn encourage a spirit of research through the study of kitabiyah (written verse), universal verses, historical verses and personal verses. Basic thinking skills must be developed alongside building character and developing creativity through basic values (spirituality, esthetics, ethics, nationalism), affective learning (imagination and creativity) and sports (games, dexterity, sportsmanship). Strengthening the foundation for human learners must avoid burdening them with excessive subjects. The basic education curriculum does not need to be overly detailed in its design. Even the national exam is not yet needed at this level, given its foundational orientation and diverse abilities of its students.
To ensure the desired quality of educational "performance" (outcomes), the role and quality of teachers should target the following: Teachers must be given greater freedom to develop creative and innovative teaching and learning methods. Education as a liberating process cannot be fulfilled if the teachers are shackled. This major role requires improving the capacity of teachers. A teacher needs better skills than a wood sculptor. A woodcarver must have in-depth, broad knowledge about wood and carving techniques, and teachers are expected to be able to sculpt human beings physically and mentally.
It is really ironic that the current system of recruiting teachers focuses more on a formal diploma. It is not enough to have a degree in the various disciplines; prospective teachers still need careful training in professional teaching skills. As for the rest, we simply cannot expect to recruit qualified teachers as long as the profession is not revered. Beyond salaries, we need social engineering to restore the community\'s attitude towards teachers to resemble the "noble figures" and "headmasters" of the past. No nation can become great without great teachers.
In nurturing basic skills and quality teachers, whatever technology disruption that may occur, the world of education will provide a strong foundation for the country\'s children to discover their "home", not misguide them into "exile". That is the gamble we are taking.
Yudi Latif, Member, Indonesian Academy of Sciences (AIPI)