A Hope For Improvement Of Indonesian Education

JAKARTA, March 29 (Antara) - The World Bank in its report, the World Development Report 2018, entitled "LEARNING to Realize Education's Promise", has recorded that some countries have had lower educational results in particular subjects such as Math and reading level. Meanwhile, tests that were held through Program for International Student Assessment or " PISA", have shown that Indonesia has achieved better results of education improvement in the past 10-15 years than several member countries of Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development or "OECD". However, according to the report, there are still major challenges that Indonesia needs to overcome. The World Bank recorded, based on PISA rankings, Indonesia however will only be able to record average points in the Math subject compared to other members of the OECD for the next 48 years and about 73 years in reading. Meanwhile, other countries in the OECD have less probability to get better achievement than Indonesia. Brazil, for example, needs at least 260 years to achieve average points on the writing subject among the OECD countries. While Tunisia needs more than 180 years to achieve the average points in Math. The World Bank's report showed the Indonesian government's effort to improve teachers' capacities by increasing the salary of certified teachers is not effective affected by political factors. During the past four years of his government, President Joko Widodo and the Vice President Jusuf Kalla, have led the nation by focusing on physical infrastructure development including road access development and development of railways, ports, airports, reservoirs, and irrigation system in many regions. The government has now begun turning their focus on improving the education sector. Lately, in his speeches, the President has reminded his ministers to cooperate more in developing human resources. The physical infrastructures that have been built will be useless, if it is not supported by good quality of civil society. "The improvement of human resources is very important for us to compete with other countries," said President Jokowi in his speech during a closed-doors meeting in the Presidential Office, Jakarta on Thursday (March 15). To improve the quality of Indonesia's human resources, the former Jakarta governor has briefed the ministers on equal education access for the improvement of educational quality, and adjustment of vocational education to match with industrial needs and networking. The government will also find a way to improve the educational system of Islamic boarding schools in many regions. "We are hoping the Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education could cooperate with the Ministry of Education and Culture in the next investment program. A change in the basic education system in the Ministry of Religious Affairs, which is related to the development of Islamic Boarding Houses, will also be considered," President said. In addition to teachers and educational infrastructure, Jokowi has also invited the banking industry to improve the quality of human resources through provision of student loan. The student loan that has been implemented by a number of countries, including the United States of America, is aimed to support human resource development as investment. The total debt in the form of student loan in the United States has a higher point than that of the consumer credit. In 2016, the student loans for higher education reached the 1,4 trillion US dollars. "The loan can be one of our investment programs for the human resource sector. Thus, people can access their educational plan through the student loan system," Jokowi said. Meanwhile, the Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Culture, Puan Maharani, stated the student loan system could become one of the potential programs to improve the quality standard of Indonesian human resources. It will give an opportunity for people to get a higher education, Maharani added. The government, said Maharani, plans to put the human resource development program in the Indonesian Government Work Plan 2019. Additionally, the Minister of Research, Technology and Higher Education, Mohammad Nasir, explained the challenge that needs to be handled by the government in order to enact the student loan program is the system to refund the education debt. According to Nasir confiscating the diplomas of the students who fail to return the loan will not be effective. There were many students who " run away", neglecting their responsibilities and let their certificates be held by their universities or banks. In order to support the student loan idea, Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Darmin Nasution, says Nasir, will discuss its potential and challenges with the banking sector. Terrain challenges One of the challenges that Indonesia needs to tackle in order to improve the education sector are obstacles faced mostly in the border, outermost and remote areas. The total State Budget or APBN allocation for education sector has been increased significantly reaching about 20 percent of the total APBN or around Rp444 trillions. While in 2017, the government allocated a budget of about Rp426 trillions. The Minister of Education and Culture, Muhadjir Effendy said the budget is not only for the ministry, but is also distributed for education development in rural areas. Nevertheless, the development of the educational infrastructure is still facing obstacles with regard to their remote locations. "As for Papua, we could not as yet reach some districts by land. Take Bintang Mountains for example. There are 34 sub-districts there but only 5 that have been able to be reached by land. The rest can only be reached by air plane," Muhadjir said. In order to solve the problem, the government is considering establishing boarding schools for people in Papua for efficiency as the government is building better road access in the region. Furthermore, the government will add more teachers to schools in the border, outermost and remote areas. "Last year, we inaugurated about 7 thousand teachers who will be sent to the front lines. We hoped there will be 10 thousand teachers more in this year," Muhadjir added. President Jokowi has asked for a synergy between ministries to develop the quality of human resources. The development of human resources will be impossible in rural areas unless road access is not improved. The road access development itself is aimed to facilitate establishment of educational institutions to elevate the quality and capacity of the people. "Thus, there will be significant change in investment and in infrastructure. By then we will enter into another big project which is human resource investment," Jokowi said.