Current education system in Indonesia raises concern either for parents, teachers and especially students.

Some schools has implemented FULL DAY school that is start from 7am until 5pm! And others applies 7am until 2pm and shorter day on Friday for “Friday’s Prayer”.

Here below essay is written by an 11th Grade student, majoring in science from State Senior High School 1 Batu, East Java, Indonesia. Her name is DEWI AYU PARAMITA and she is my sister 🙂

Mind you, Dewi’s real passion is studying and she is one of those students who always achieve an outstanding marks. And yet she complains about how hard the education system is!

Her school’s timetable start from 7am to 2pm, from Monday-Saturday. And determined to achieve the best marks, she has to attend another course after school from 3pm to 8pm! Of course those activities makes her feels exhausted, weary and confused. 

Imagine those majority students whom has an average marks or even the low marks’ one? How would they feel? How would they react? And those after school course is not FREE! You have to pay good money for it. Imagine if they are coming from a low wages family and yet those students are not too smart?

I thought school should make you happy instead of miserable.

I thought education should prepare you as a good human instead of a walking-empty-souls.

I thought children should have their happy time.

Shouldn’t they?

Couldn’t they?

And why can’t they????

Critical Condition of Education in Indonesia

By Dewi Ayu Paramita

Education is an essential aspect for developing a country. This is because education can change ways of thinking in the society. A country has to improve the people education to create broad knowledge and good characters of nation. However, education in Indonesia is still far from good condition. Indonesia faces complex problems in the educational aspects in terms of curriculum, student confidence in testing, appreciation for teachers, and facilities.

Curriculum in Indonesia still burdened the students. We know that Indonesia educational curriculum has changed 10 times from 1947 to 2013. It has been more than half of century yet nothing has changed for improvement. In addition, the number of subjects provided in curriculum is a lot and it makes the students difficult to focus. In elementary school, I used to dream to be a doctor. Now, I am learning many subjects in senior high school, and my interest in being a doctor has slowly disappeared. Then I become confused what I should be in the future. Furthermore, many students are not confident in tests because they are demanded to get good scores in all subjects. So, some students have to take additional courses to improve their comprehension and achieve good scores in the exams. Moreover, many students do not hesitate to cheat so that they are able to achieve satisfying scores. This is a really disappointing condition.

Curriculum should encourage students’ self-discovery and interest. The students should be able to choose the subjects based on their passion from the early school and focus on it. Certainly, all subjects are important as knowledge but the students should not be demanded achieving good scores and make students compete each other. Competition in school is good, but it sometimes also make some students being individual and avoid group tasks. I experience it during my school life that I am more confident to do assignment by myself and do not want to entrust to other member of group. Smart students do not want to help the low students. Their selfishness makes the high students smarter and the low students more stupid. Collaboration is the best way to develop their own intelligence. That also can make the students confident to speak to others and learn to convey their self-thought.

Teachers in Indonesia still get low appreciation. In some areas, especially in rural areas, many teachers are under paid and they do not get proper salary. Even some of them voluntarily teach for humanity. In addition, lots of teachers get low respect from the students. Teachers are heroes but they often get blamed. Take a recent case as an example, a teacher was sued in a court by his student just because he disciplined the student physically – pinching.

Teachers should be light in the dark. Good teachers result in good education, and good education leads to good generations. Governments have to be more concern about the teachers’ role and contribution in education. The teachers should be more appreciated especially who deeply sacrifice in remote areas. Both students and their parents should respect to the teachers and understand that the teachers discipline the students for the sake of the students’ goodness and make them better for the future.

In term of facilitation, Indonesia has unequal infrastructure which is centered only in big cities. That’s true, the government has funded trillions for public schools in Indonesia. But in some schools, the facilities do not meet the students’ need yet. In rural areas, many school buildings get low attention and even almost collapse. Many students there have to travel far, cross river, pass fragile bridges, and many other barriers to reach their school. More than half of population in Indonesia are young generation. However, many of them cannot get proper education even cannot experience studying at school due to their financial limitation. Therefore, the government must expand the infrastructure development and distribute equal education to whole regions in Indonesia.

Governments, teachers, and parents have very important role to give every young generation good education for their future preparation and an equal chance to reach their dreams. Let’s make the world a better place for everyone.