Education in Indonesia

Education is the most important thing in this world. Education is a facility to develop the intellectual life of the nation because through education, people can develop themselves, utilize and conserve the environment. Education in Indonesia has undergone a lot of progress quite rapidly. This is evidenced by the many programs launched by school parties both public and private school. With this fact, it doesn’t  rule out the possibility that the quality of education in Indonesia is not inferior to any other country in the world. In addition to these developments, there are still many problems and mistakes encountered in education in Indonesia in terms of both education systems and in the process of implementation.

First, facilities and infrastructure is a form of support for the achivement of  education quality. For instance, one of the most important facility in the school is library. Existence of school libraries really support the learning  process at school, though not the only contributing factor in the learning activities. Library will bring much benefit to the world of education and it can spur students to increase their knowledge. In fact, many school libraries in Indonesia have not function as it should, it has not managed effectively, even most of the libraries in elementary school is very alarming because there are barriers in terms of lending books to students, the books just stacked in the book shelf and many demaged books are eaten by rats. This condition still need attention to our role in education world. Remembering that school libraries are supporting facility in the learning process in the school. Another important facility in the school is class rooms. Sungkowo ( staff of Disdikpora ) informed that  as many as 535.825 of about 900.000 elementary school classrooms in Indonesia are in damaged condition. Moreover, he added that the cause of malfunction classrooms because of the old age of the buildings, natural disaster and the acts of vandalism and arson in the conflict area.

Second, in addition, there are other big problems in education in Indonesia such as poor quality of teachers and low students motivation to study. As elementary school classrooms, mostly in poor condition, then most of the quality of teachers is also in poor condition. When quality is measured by ownership of a diploma, only 46 percent that meet these requirements. It means there are many elementary school teachers who do not meet academic requirements. It also means that most of our elementary school teachers are not qualified. In terms of student motivation in Indonesia also include low-category. Nowdays, there are many students in schools that have not been oriented to the quality of learning. They go to school just to meet the demands of “ social propriety “ and they do not care about the demands of quality. The damage and the impropriety of classrooms, disfunction of library school, poor quality of teachers and lack of learning motivation of the students is a problem in facilities and infrastructure in the world of education in Indonesia.

Third,  the error paradigm of education is another problem in the educational process. The tendency of people who understand education will only be obtained in formal school, it is not true. Therefore, the error of this view must be straightened out. Actually, education can be obtain anywhere, not necessarily in a formal school. Next, people should be aware and understand that education should not be oriented to the world of work. A distinct irony if a person after comptleting education and became successful education mafia. Actually, our expectations is how to enjoy formal education, especially the graduates are able to put humans in place, in other words it is called humanize humans.

Fourth, among  parents, students and teachers have less attention to the follow-up reporting  the results of the assessment process of teaching and learning activities. Whereas, the assessment aims to determine the development of learning outcomes. Utilization of learning outcomes in order to improve and enhance the quality of learning that must be supported by students, teachers, principals and parents. Therefore, assessment repots for students and parents cultivated as complete as possible to provide complete information in terms of cognitive, psychomotor and affective. According to the head office of  youth education and sports of Solo, Drs. H. Kuswanto, M.M said that information of learning report can be deternine the progress of students learning outcomes, knowing  the theory that has not been mastered, as well as motivate them to learn better and improve learning strategies. He gave an example to us to see a report card. Parents should see the child and the class average achivement. This values indicates the position of students in class. Kuswanto think that is what some parents have not understood. Whereas for teachers and school, report cards are used to determine the strengths and weaknesses of students, both individually and classical.

Fifth, error in education system in Indonesia is also a fundamental problem in education. Schools and colleges never teach their students not to blindly financially in order to train students to live more financially.  In Indonesia, colleges and other educational institutions is very rapid development in recent years. However, behind its growth, there is one problem that has not found a solution, that is the issue of labour distribution for its graduates. Colleges are now successfully graduated  a thousands of its graduates every year, then the fresh graduates usually will become confused and frustrated because they do not know where we are heading after they graduate and hold an undergraduate. Whereas the previous graduates have not had the distribution of job. Moreover, our education in Indonesia has not been able to produce the output which is independent and can survive in global competition. Our collage graduates  have not been able to compete in the employment sector due to lack of ability that it has. On the other hand, the irrelevence of teaching sytems in educational institutions has spawned a new educatonal formats that is more promising for graduates to gain employment opportunities. According to Robert T. Kiyosaki, schools and colleges only prepare young people to be an employee who depend on salaries and facilities which are limited.

The last, high cost of education is also another fundamental problem. The cost of education , whether consciously or not, has made the dignity of the nation down. On the one hand, the govenment wants to Indonesian children become smart people. However, on the other hand the cost of education is not affordable to the public.

In conclusion,  education is the important  thing  in this world, especially in our country. However, the problems in education as the wrong paradigm of education, facilities and infrastructure, the error of education systems and the high cost of education still haunt us. The events that have occured due to the effects of the problems that arise in education in Indonesia should be a lesson that can introspect ourselves. We should find the solution of this problems, in order to achive goals in education.

 

 

Bibliography

Fauzan. (2007, August 25). Pendidikan Formal Vs Pendidikan Informal. Retrieved from http://www.solopos.net

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Yulis, H. (2007). Ubah Paradigma Ketenagakerjaan. Kompas .