It is interesting to note that apart from independence and equality for all people, the spirit of national education instilled by our forefathers such as Ki Hajar Dewantara, Moh. Hatta and Moh. Yamin shares very much with the dictum voiced by the founder of Berlin University, Wilhelm von Humbolt, that is, Lehrfreiheit (freedom in teaching) and Lernfreiheit (freedom in learning).
This freedom implies that both teachers and students have the full rights to adhere to their own beliefs and other beliefs they respect or value without being suppressed by outside forces, including the state.
More importantly, they have the authority — developed and then established through their experiences — to voice what they consider as a “truth”. Our respect to this authority is tantamount to valuing the autonomy of the human mind, which goes to the very heart of the idea of liberatory education.
While it is normally the state (through the National Education Ministry) that has the authority to issue educational policies related to, for example, curriculum and assessment, the full participation of teachers, students, education practitioners and other related stakeholders in interrogating such policies is mandatory to ensure their usefulness and viability.
That is, all these parties have the authority to directly intervene in the policy-making process.
This is indeed a plausible argument. Educational practice always operates under social contexts. Education specialist H.H. Stern affirms this by saying that education is a field of discipline always interrelated to sociology — hence the term educational sociology.
In this perspective, educational organizations such as schools are a representation of a society as they reflect the existing social structure.
Such a point of view, however, seems paradoxical as far as our educational context is concerned. On the one hand, education is perceived as a way of widening the gap between the haves and the have-nots, eventually creating the so called “elitist” education reserved only for the former. On the other hand, education is construed as a means of narrowing or eliminating social class or division and promoting equality among social groups, irrespective of socio-economic classes. Class barriers, it is argued, can only be broken down through educational activities.
Interestingly, the paradox also reflects many of the government’s ambivalent educational policies. For example, attempts have been made to improve the quality of education through the establishment of elite local international-based standard schools that can be afforded only by the opulent. However, at the same time equal opportunity for education and access to gain from it has been realized through the building of schools and libraries mostly in remote and underprivileged regions.
While the latter’s efforts should be lauded, the ambivalence stirs suspicion among the people as to whether or not the government is really committed to improving the system of education in this country.
With the benefit of hindsight, the goal of national education once envisioned by R.M. Suwardi Suryaningrat, better known as Ki Hajar Dewantara, through his Taman Siswa (a social organization devoted to peoples’ education) was to create equal access to education regardless of social classes and area of origin.
Ki Hajar believed that the spirit of nationalism and the struggle to maintain the nation’s dignity and uplift prosperity could be best instilled through national education. Education was, after all, deemed
the beacon of hope for the young generation.
We need to admit, however, that what we miss much from Ki Hajar’s vision and philosophy of education is that education is a conduit for social transformation. It is a means of elevating national dignity and a resource for understanding and preserving civilization. It is a weapon against intellectual “colonialism”.
Such vision is certainly germane with the present condition when hitherto the goal of national education seems uncertain. Amid the influx of competing educational models –most of which are foreign to us — we have become disoriented and have no clear “intellectual guidance” to follow.
It is therefore not surprising that most educational problems remain unaddressed and controversies over educational activities, such as national exams, curriculum change and teacher certification programs, continue unabated.
Tight state control over and excessive intervention in the practice of education seems to have tarnished the image of education as an activity of empowering citizens for the common good, as well for protecting them from the shackles of poverty.
Ki Hajar’s vision and philosophical educational outlook have been our indelible intellectual heritage, which has been proven to withstand the test of time.
All in all, inspired by this vision, we are able to reconstruct an alternative educational framework or model that fits our present and future educational needs. (http://www.thejakartapost.com)
