Introduction

(Indonesians can skip this. I mean, who needs a different take on Indonesia? Its like the speed of light. Besides, its in Engrish)

Is it stupid to write long rambling texts like these? In English - on an Indonesian blog? This will be a mainly Indonesian blog, though I will add English translation of the entries

Pardon my ungrammatical English! :D

This blog is about the quality of Indonesian education, or lack of it. It's from the POV of a student attending state education - he is not in college yet.

Indonesia is a 3rd world country that, although being the 4th most populated (Heh, they never seem to list Indonesia - they only list the top 3), is quite obscure. One of the last times Indonesia gained widespread international attention was, ironically, at the time of the 2004 Tsunami. Since then, you could only find news on Indonesia after some vigorous searching.

Like most 3rd world countries, Indonesia is not exactly the 'tropical island heaven!1!!1!' most tourists search for.
If you have the luck of visiting Indonesia, scratch the surface. Look around, beyond the confines of the beautiful beaches and hotels. If you can stand the heat, take the traditional mode of transport - walking. You can't fail to notice the poverty, the constant panhandling, the politics (as of April-July, General Election fever is still running high), trash and general 3rd worldliness - most of Indonesia's beauty is only skin deep (or, in fact, shallower). You can actually see the material incarnation of poverty here - a permanent, heavy fog, clouding up most people's eyes. Even their laughter is heavy and restricted - like the whole country is on a rationing program of happiness. The general mood of pessimism is so pronunced, you can feel it weighing on your shoulders, if you venture out to the right places.

Hey, if Obama can experience the 'true' Indonesia, there's no reason why you can't!

Or, from the comfort of your own home, read Carl Sagan's "The Demon Haunted World : Science As A Candle In The Dark". Specifically, read his critique of the American educational system. From his POV, the American educational system doesn't encourage critical thinking, science education, skepticism and a whole myriad of other stuff essential to vanquishing the afromentioned demons. I expect its better now.

Now, picture a Darker and Edgier version of this state of education - the same level of Grimdark present in the Warhammer 40K worlds.

A place where widespread critical thinking is a relic of the long gone past - present only in idealized school textbooks, musty old tomes and the odd tourism brochure. Critical thinking doesn't even exist in everyday nomenclature. Most Indonesians consider widespread critical thinking to be an outdated idealism - similar to the purely Communist state. Skepticism is actively eroded by the deluge of ads (political and non-political) which asks the viewer to accept whatever they are offering without question. Argument from Authority is the rule. In fact, in some aspects, skepticism is synonymous with 'heretical'.

Questions are not answered, at best they are merely rephrased and shoven back to the asker. Anyway, only the awkward question. Science education merely consists of memorizing long strings of text, which are often meaningless to the reader. This castrates the main motivation of science - wonder. There is an ever watchful Inquisition - in the form of peer pressure - that hacks potential intellectuals like hot lightsabers through saplings. Students don't just cheat... They cheat with dignity. Education here actually encourages (though mostly indirectly) students to cheat. Great cheaters are like demigods.

Generally, education is memorizing and reciting by heart whole volumes of text. Understanding is of tertiary importance - as long as you have adequate grades/ marks, they'll never question how you got them, or whether you understand what you're supposed to. People with good (i.e. above 80) marks, are labelled as geeks and left to wither on the vine. The whole purpose of education is not to understand the world, but merely to acquire pieces of paper, incorrectly labelled as 'degrees'. Heck, if they can get away with it, some students would run off to degree mills.

Sadly, that's the current state of Indonesian education - dictating with it Indonesia's mindset. Of course, in reality, its a bit better than that. A bit. The danger posed by the extreme gullibility of Indonesians, if left unchecked, is apparent. This phenomenon proves just how gullible some Indonesians are (perhaps making the Placebo Effect greater?). If, in the near future, some Jim Jones-esque charlatan swoops here and manages to make a cult, its quite easy to imagine that something akin to an Indonesian Jonestown Massacre could happen.

Fortunately, amazingly perhaps, there's a fair number of people who aren't as gullible as the rest. I hope to find lots more of them in college - there's some in normal society, but they are often reclusive - or have ascended to a higher strata of community (read : they are secluded to Universities and underground Intellectual clubs) - or have ascended to a Higher Strata in the other sense.

This blog is an effort to point out some of the major failings of Indonesia's educational system (from the viewpoint of a student) - in the hope that some future administration could correct them (General Election is going to be held in 3 month's time) The advantage is, Indonesia is still a developing country. It managed to somehow survive (as of this year) the economic crisis - with a growing economy. Education is, of course, lower in priority than the general concern of keeping the country from bankruptcy.

So, what does the foreign reader get? Maybe that 'feel-good-feeling' that happens because you know your country's education system is not stuck in the 19th century. Or maybe you can find faults in YOUR education system - and correct them so that Carl Sagan's 'prophecy' doesn't happen. That kind of stuff.