Pancasila Human Beings

FOTO-FOTO: KOMPAS/BAHANA PATRIA GUPTA

Anita Lie

When a young man, identified as HS, threatened to decapitate President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo\'s head in a viral video, a UGM lecturer, KPH Bagas Pujilaksono Widyakanigara, immediately wrote a letter to the President. He wrote about the "Blurry Portrait of National Education".

The young man\'s savagery and cruelty were linked to the vulnerability of the education sector in the face of serious threats of radicalism in Indonesia. It is obvious that the education sector has often been regarded as the locus for the transmission of various diseases of society as well as being expected to be their antidote.

Pancasila human development is a function of mental-spiritual-cultural development through the education sector, which is in line with institutional-political functions and material-technological functions (Yudi Latif, Nationality Alliance, 2019). Education in Indonesia should prepare students to become Pancasila human beings: direct children to be God-beings with values of virtue and peace toward others, awareness of national ties and a commitment to take care of the Motherland of Indonesia as a shared home.

Through education, students learn that regardless of skin color, eye shape, hair texture, region of origin and domicile, faith and beliefs, or different forms of clothing, citizens have human rights, civil rights and equal obligations. The education sector can carry out this strategic role by internalizing Pancasila values through the rearrangement of the curriculum.

Internalization of Pancasila

Building Pancasila human beings is not a matter of one subject or the task of the teacher of Pancasila and Citizenship (PKn) Education. This subject is undeniably very important because it contains various knowledge about Pancasila, the 1945 Constitution, the life of the nation and state, including state institutions and systems of government, politics and democracy, rights and obligations of citizens, as well as protection and law enforcement. Besides PKn, all other subjects can also be used for internalizing Pancasila values. Pancasila should even be the basic paradigm for curriculum preparation, management and delivery, to promote awareness of the importance of living with other community members who are different, care for maintaining a shared house and to foster the creative power needed to find the best solution for community problems.

Formal education should be able to invite students from the Indonesian community who are known to be very religious to dive deeper and climb higher than just memorizing and understanding religious doctrines, symbols and rituals. Indonesian people who have the duty to carry out their obligations in accordance with the teachings of their religion, can also develop respect and appreciation for citizens of different faiths and support them to become better followers of their respective faiths.

The concept of da\'wah (mission) should be explored more deeply. Rather than focusing on the addition of followers, it should explore the spirituality of truth seekers and contributing to solving community problems.

The process of becoming just and civilized human beings also occurs in the locus of education. A curriculum based on Pancasila must be free from bias that glorifies one community group and dwarfs other groups. The perspective of students of the Indonesian archipelago needs to be improved by teaching about tribes, customs, traditions, local wisdom, the sea and the outermost islands.

By gaining a comprehension of the diversity and cultural wealth of the archipelago, children will be enlightened, eroding the tendency toward entosentrime (feeling that one’s group is superior) so that Indonesian people can behave and act fairly and in a civilized way and respect others.

School is a vehicle for learning to interpret and enliven the value of Indonesian unity. Formal education curriculum, especially in early childhood, elementary and middle school education, should encourage students to introspect, interact with fellow citizens and foster national values.

The third principle of Pancasila does not mean that individual/group differences must be merged for the sake of unity, as in the New Order period. Appreciating differences within the framework of Indonesian unity means accepting the uniqueness of each group and caring for the shared living space.

Finally, to realize social justice for all Indonesian people, students need to master the worldly sciences. Teaching mathematical sciences, natural and social knowledge, and mastery of languages (regional, Indonesian and foreign) can equip children with the intelligence and skills needed to deal with various injustices and social problems. Teaching these worldly sciences enables students to work for the benefit of the wider community.

Of course, becoming Pancasila human beings requires an educational process that is more than the transmission of information and knowledge at the level of cognition. To complete the cognition process, art education can be a channel for developing healthy empathy and relationships among human beings (Sukarlan, Kompas, 23/5/2019).

Learning human beings

In an educational regime, the curriculum is a device that is enlivened by two important actors: teachers and students. The formal curriculum, set by policymakers, is the core. It provides a guide, syllabus and all the tools, including the implementation of learning plans, learning materials, media and teaching aids, and assessment of learning.

In the Indonesian context, the main material of learning in the formal curriculum is usually in the form of textbooks. However, qualified teachers should not rely on textbooks. Additional material from the mass media, online media, recordings of public events, reference books, fairy tales, folklore and oral traditions can complement. The challenge is the competence and character of the teachers.

The hatred against President Jokowi and verbal violence exhibited on Facebook by Putra Kurniawan (the pseudonym of a state senior high school teacher in Pamekasan) showed the low-point of the teaching profession. If a teacher is like that, what will the students become? Teachers with such destructive characters should not be part of the educational mission. It is a sign of serious negligence in the education system, from recruitment to induction and teacher development.

It is clear that character building and teacher development are big tasks that must be carried out systematically and sustainably. What still gives us hope is that there are still quite a number of dedicated teachers among the 4 million teachers throughout Indonesia.

Therefore, macro policies and strategies to improve the quality of education in Indonesia need to be guarded so that the country’s human development plan will be successful in the next five years. Teachers play a crucial role in producing Pancasila human being.

Anita Lie, Professor, School of Teaching and Educational Science (FKIP) Widya Mandala Catholic University, Surabaya