Education in Indonesia: What Should Have Been

Introduction 

A girl wakes up in her bed. Her alarm has rung; it’s time to wake up. She puts on her clothes and gets ready for the day. She walks out of her room and enters the first floor of the house. She’s 15, and she isn’t going to school; she’s going to work.

For many girls from villages, or “kampungs” in Indonesian, this is their daily reality. While Indonesia has made strides and steps towards universal education, many Indonesians, particularly females, do not finish high school. There is a severe and observable lack of funding, facilities and certified teachers in most schools, especially when it comes to non-STEM subjects. There are some very problematic aspects to the educational culture in Indonesia. Finally, the government has failed to raise awareness on the importance of and raise funding to provide support for education due to deep-rooted corruption. This has resulted in the Indonesian population’s general attitude towards education to be one of dismissal and neglect, especially when their financial situation requires their children to work instead of learn. But how did Indonesia’s education system, which is the fourth largest in the world, come to fail at what it set out to do?

Education in the Context of Historical Colonialism

Like many problems, the failings of Indonesia’s education system began at its very inception, when the Dutch first started colonising Indonesia in the 17th century. As colonisers are wont to do to ensure their unwilling subjects remain submissive, the Dutch did not provide a proper education system. Before 1870, which is almost three centuries after the Dutch started colonising parts of Indonesia, there weren’t even any official Dutch schools for native Indonesians. Only the Dutch and higher-level members of the caste system the Dutch enforced at the time (which unsurprisingly had native Indonesians at the very bottom of the social ladder) had access to Dutch-founded schools at all. It was even later, in 1871, that the Dutch launched a policy to unify the various and separate education systems being implemented throughout Indonesia’s archipelago. 

It must be noted, however, that though some Dutch-founded schools had opened to Indonesians, it didn’t mean that native Indonesians now had a proper universal education. Though the policy for a unified education system was launched and greater priority was put on educating Indonesian natives towards the late 19th century, educational development was starved of funding. Funding for education only comprised 6% of the total expenditure for the Dutch colonial budget as late as the 1920s. At the time, to the Dutch, being Indonesian meant being their subjects, and subjects could not have an education because being educated meant thinking for yourself. Education provided a means of communication, which was crucial when organising on a large scale because over 800 languages are spoken in Indonesia. Education also gave access to ideas and thoughts from foreign shores, including those of independence and anti-colonial sentiment, which grew increasingly prevalent in the 20th century.

You would think that this was an abysmal state for the education system to be in, but really those who even had a Dutch school on the same island as them were the lucky ones. Those living outside of Java, where urban development was concentrated, were even less likely to have access to Dutch schools as the Dutch highly relegated educational needs on islands outside of Java to missionary schools. 

As such, in the first few centuries of its operation, Indonesia’s education system suffered from a lack of funding, lack of uniform standards throughout the archipelago, lack of access due to the caste system and discrimination by the Dutch of native Indonesians, and a lack of choice of non-missionary schools if you lived outside of Java. The results of such a mismanaged education system can be seen by the literacy rate of the native population in the year 1920 – only 6.5% of the male portion of the native population was literate, while only 0.5% of the female portion was literate, even though by the 1930 census of Indonesia, 97.4% of the population were Indonesian natives.

Education Post-Colonialism 

In 1945, when Indonesia gained its independence, many were hopeful that the country had a bright future. However, things were much bleaker for its education system. Most teachers in Indonesia at the time were either Dutch or Japanese, and that meant that they left once Indonesia gained independence, leaving schools with an acute lack of certified teachers. Furthermore, because the education system had been in the hands of the Dutch and Japanese during their occupation and fulfilled their own coloniser needs, very few Indonesians had experience in managing schools and there was a lack of awareness on the importance of education in Indonesia. 

In other words, Indonesia’s independent education system was impaired even before it was properly set up. Because the foundation for the education system was broken to begin with, a concentrated and unified effort had to be made to improve our education system, which has yet to be exerted even today, 77 years after Indonesia earned its independence, although our education has undoubtedly moved forward leaps and bounds in certain ways from where it was in the colonial days.

Literacy Rates, Compulsory Education and Financial Support

For example, in 2018, the literacy rate for males in Indonesia was 97.33% while for females it was 93.99%. However, the enrolment rate, especially at higher levels of education, still leaves much to be desired. In the same year, the net enrolment rate for primary, secondary and high school were 93.5%, 78.84%, and 60.67%respectively. Tertiary education was at 36.31%. The major drops in enrolment can be attributed to a lack of government initiative to make education compulsory and provide financial support to families needing it to ensure their children don’t have to work. It was only in 1994 that it was made compulsory for all Indonesians to have at least 9 years of schooling, and it was only in 2013, 9 years ago, that 12 years of schooling was made compulsory. Furthermore, even with the existence of these policies, there is still a lack of government financial support; the children of families of a lower economic background, such as the village girl we met at the beginning, often must drop out of school to work and support their family. There aren’t any effective widescale government support systems that can help students like the village girl.

Government Funding for Education
Even when enrolled in school, it isn’t a guarantee that you’ll get a good education. Education is starved of funds in Indonesia due to mass corruption by government officials. Most public schools will have high teacher-to-student ratios (around 30 to 40+ students in a class to one teacher) and lacking facilities; facilities are made cheaply and quickly if they’re even made at all. 

Teacher and Teaching Quality
Furthermore, many teachers lack certification. In the first place, the supply of teachers isn’t that high since the number of educated adults was less in the past than it is now. Hence, schools often make do with teachers who aren’t certified in the curriculum or who barely have experience. Richer, private schools can often afford to hire expatriate teachers, so they have a better chance of having higher quality teachers, however, most public schools are government-funded; they can’t afford the same.

Choice of Schools and Island Inequalities
There is also often a lack of choice for schooling. Historically, as mentioned previously, education on islands out of Java was provided mainly by Christian missionaries. This trend has continued; the government focuses on mainly developing the island of Java as Java is the most populated island in Indonesia and since the government is comprised mostly of Javanese people. Consequently, although Indonesia is comprised of 5 equally important main islands, the standards of living and development of the cities, and education, on each island differ greatly. 

For example, in Medan, the most populated city on the island of Sumatra, there has only been 1 highway in the last 20 years, while in Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia located on Java, there is a new highway being built every 2 years. As a result, in some towns or villages, there is only 1 primary, secondary and high school, all of which are usually public schools. If you’re lucky, there could be another, more often than not better, school in town, but it would most likely be a religious school, usually an Islamic, Christian or Catholic school. While there is nothing inherently wrong with religious schools so long as they don’t force anyone to follow their beliefs, the lack of choices for students does present a serious problem; if they do not wish to go to a religious school, where can they go for a good education?

STEM vs Non-STEM Support

Indonesia’s educational culture also has problematic aspects. Much like other Asian countries, there’s an overly high emphasis placed on STEM subjects due to STEM subjects being seen as harder and hence more valuable. Students who choose to take a non-STEM stream instead of the STEM stream in high school are often looked down on, and the few funds schools do have are hardly ever allocated to non-STEM subjects, so their teachers are also usually lacking as compared to the STEM teachers. 

Orientation Hazing and Cyclical Bullying
Furthermore, there are serious bullying problems present in many schools. Like many other Asian countries, Indonesia places great importance on hierarchy – lower-year students are to listen to their seniors, and students are to listen to teachers, without question. As such, hazing or bullying incidents frequently occur in schools, particularly during orientation. See, in Indonesia, orientation is carried out by having new students do activities ranging from silly things like learning a meme dance and performing it when ordered, bringing random things such as strings, name cards, ropes or crafting materials to school to more dangerous activities such as physical pranks or running as many laps as ordered without breaks under the sweltering Indonesian sun. Orientation is often administered by senior students and not teachers, hence they have the final say on what new students must do to officially become “one of them”. Consequently, unfortunately, there have been many cases where these senior students abuse their power and harm new students. 

So extreme can orientations get that there have been incidents where students have died or gotten injured in orientation, though little change is made even after such incidents. In terms of statistics, 41% of students aged 15 have experienced bullying at least a few times a month according to a Programme for International Student Assessment study in 2018. The strict hierarchy of teachers over senior students over new students also makes sure that a cycle of bullying would begin, with senior students picking on new students and new students eventually picking on new students once they aged into senior students because of their past experience with senior students when they were new students.

Teenage Delinquency
As it tends to happen when levels of education are lower, teenage delinquency is also a major problem in Indonesia. Called “tawuran” or mass street fighting, gangs made up of junior high school and high school students often fight on the streets over trivial matters or personal grudges. This problem is so common amongst teenage male students that it has even become seen as a coming of age for boys reaching teenage age by students, researchers and the public to a certain extent. Furthermore, when certain schools have especially bad delinquency problems, delinquency often becomes part of the school culture and reputation, spawning even more delinquency in the school environment. In extreme cases, some students see delinquency as a required lifestyle if they’re to socialise with the other students at their school. 

Consequently, material damage, vandalism and even casualties have been brought about by teenage delinquency. Over the past 5 years, there have been over 130 student deaths from 800 brawls just in and around Jakarta.

Authoritarian Figures and Abuses of Power
There are also incidents of teachers abusing their power over students. In my secondary school, we had a teacher who got imprisoned due to sending porn to 9th graders, and there have been many similar cases where teachers used their position to assault, bully or discriminate against students. The lack of certified teachers only aggravates this problem as the fact that you don’t need much certification to become a teacher means that there isn’t much screening of teachers to prevent incidents like this from happening.

Gender Discrimination
Has this article depressed you yet? Well unfortunately if you’re female, it’s only about to get more depressing. Another highlight of education in Indonesia is the attitude towards females in education (and the lack of correction from the government in terms of programs to raise awareness to combat this). Most women are expected to get married, and as a result, families place much lower expectations for education for female children as opposed to their male children. My mother was once asked why she sent her children (my sister and I) to expensive schools since we would be getting married anyway. When asked what age I’d like to get married in primary, my friends (all girls) told me my answer, 28 years old, was too old. In fact, according to a 2016 report by Indonesia’s Statistics Agency and the United Nations children’s fund UNICEF, 1 in 4 girls in Indonesia marry before they turn 18.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Indonesia’s education system suffers from a myriad of problems. Briefly, this article explored the problems of lack of funding, facilities and certified teachers, particularly in non-STEM fields, a lack of variety of religious and non-religious schools, a strict hierarchical culture and still prominent sexist attitudes baked into the educational culture in Indonesia, all exacerbated by a corrupt government and a lack of awareness on the importance of education. Unfortunately, without a widely adopted and structural change, there isn’t much that can be done to better the education system and the lives of the youth in Indonesia. 

However, I believe that progress is always possible. Like each drop of water in the sea, even individuals will eventually erode what seems to be immovable stone. For individuals to bring about wide-scale change, we must be conscious of the inequalities present in the world around us and always strive to ensure everyone has equal opportunities and is treated fairly. As such, a way to improve the education system is to vote for those who have the interests of the education system of Indonesia, and hence Indonesia itself, at heart. It is also important, then, to keep an open mind about the different kinds of lives everyone faces. We might be privileged enough to go to university in a foreign country, but we must remember those who, in a better world, would be here with us. In the end, a better education means the potential of a country’s people can be fully realised, which is a goal worth striving for.