Commercialization of Education

KOMPAS/KRISTIAN OKA PRASETYADI (OKA) 11-06-2020

Hiero Lasut (20) attended the graduation of Sam Ratulangi University online with his mother, Youna Lasut-Sompotan (44), at his home in Manado, North Sulawesi, on Thursday (11/6/2020). This year, several schools and colleges are holding graduations online to follow the protocol for preventing the transmission of Covid-19.

The decision of the working committee on the omnibus bill on job creation to revoke provisions on education should be appreciated.

At least, for now, there will be no more worries that higher education will become a commodity in the context of investment. There should be a guarantee that higher education should be put as part of the national education system, which is required not only to produce competitive human resources but also plays a strategic and philosophical role in educating the nation and advancing science.

According to IPB University professor Hariadi Kartodihardjo, who reviewed the articles in the Education Law, which will be amended and become part of the omnibus bill on job creation, education is not only for economic purposes. If this happens, it has the potential to separate academic life from the realities of everyday life.

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The Tridharma (three missions) of higher education is more relevant here. Higher education not only functions to educate the nation’s children but also to promote research and development as part of the advancement of science as well as community service or social functions.

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Thus, the knowledge developed in higher education does not have to be related to the need to earn a living. Likewise, research conducted by higher education institutions do not have to be related to industry. Higher education also has the responsibility to solve problems of injustice and humanity in society.

The success of education is then measured by the number of graduates who can be absorbed in the job market.

With these three functions, it is quite right to remove the provisions on education from the omnibus bill on job creation. The need for improvement in manpower in Industry 4.0 era has in some ways changed academic and economic cultures. The success of education is then measured by the number of graduates who can be absorbed in the job market.

YOUTUBE SEKRETARIAT PRESIDEN

Screenshot of the inauguration of the Diponegoro University Vocational School building, Semarang City, Central Java, by President Joko Widodo on Wednesday (26/8/2020).

The emergence of popular majors in universities has unconsciously “cradled” the nation’s children to pursue a major as guarantee for the future. There is also the emergence of popular universities, which often have implications on higher education costs. The commercialization of education not only gives birth to educational practices that produce the manpower to meet market needs but also becomes exclusive because it can only be enjoyed by certain groups who have financial support. One of the indications is that Indonesia\'s higher education participation rate is only around 34 percent, even though the number of tertiary institutions in the country has reached more than 4,500. Compared with China, which has a population of more than 1.5 billion people, it only has 2,824 universities.

The entry of foreign universities must primarily consider these conditions, not economic considerations. With the large number of tertiary institutions, the government\'s main task should not only be to further improve the quality of existing tertiary institutions but to also increase the opportunity of the nation\'s children to get higher education.