The True Circumstance Of Indonesian Education

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but it is the light of the fire”, a quote from William Butler Yeats, implies that education should not be brimming water in a bucket. It even should be able to light a candle to lighten its surrounding. It seems this quotation truly concerned with Indonesian education system. Does the education system refer to ‘fulfill the bucket’ or ‘lighten its surroundings’?

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According to the survey conducted by Political and Economic Risk Consultant (PERC), Indonesia is now on the 12th grade among the 12 countries that illustrate significant decline on education qualities in Asia. It, in fact, implies that there are still many severe problems among all educational elements of Indonesian educational system including the management, facilities and teachers.

Assumptions and controversies in relation to Educational background and Teachers’ Professional Certification program (Sertifikasi Guru) are said to be the major cause of it,

In fact, there are approximately 13,8% of 1.2 million teacher in elementary school who are not certified (Balitbang Depdiknas: 1998). It is believed that Indonesian teachers do not fulfill the standard of qualified teacher. As the consequence, there are still many teachers are unable to manage the class effectively, for instance, to organize the teaching planning, to evaluate, and to test their students.

Moreover, after the government regulated the additional salary as an award for qualified teacher, all teachers suddenly committed to fulfill all the administrative condition expecting that they will be awarded in spite of their unworthiness. In addition, there are some teachers’ assumed that teacher certification  is addressed to those who seek for prosperity, meanwhile, the aim of teacher certification program to encourage them to be professional teacher.

Furthermore, certification issues also effect on the increasing number of students’ training and teacher ship program (FKIP) in some universities. The teachers even manipulate this certification. This phenomenon might be the causes of unsuccessful teaching process.

There is even a rumor that teacher is an easy work. As can be seen from our society, many teachers only hand over the modules to the student and they think their tasks are finished.

To sum up, our government, ministry of education still has many works to resolve those problems. I state that this state, Indonesia, need many great program to develop our education, but we have to realize that it is not enough, there should any controls among those program, to see the program enforcement. Especially, when teacher national recruitment comes, government must take a qualified teacher only, which has great academic background, experiences and personality. In addition, providing scholarship programs to excellent student who wants to be a teacher will be very supportive.

By Taufik Akbar│Advisory Board in HEC