Bali's Problem on
EDUCATION
In light of recent UNICEF reports from 2015, which revealed the stark reality of 73,000 children under 18 living below the national poverty line and 512,000 children under 18 existing below double the poverty line in Bali, we are faced with a pressing mission. Bali has made commendable strides in ensuring nearly universal access to primary education. Yet, a troubling disparity persists: children from disadvantaged backgrounds are significantly less likely to complete their secondary education. This effect is further amplified by the COVID-19 Pandemic. Additionally, the quality of education itself remains a critical concern, with only half of primary school children meeting the minimum national standards in reading, and a mere quarter in mathematics.Beyond the challenge of limited personal finances, there is also a pronounced deficiency in government funding allocated to support schools across Indonesia. Whilst public schools are free of charge, many schools in remote villages find themselves ill-equipped to provide quality education (especially early-staged), primarily due to a scarcity of essential resources, equipment, and educational materials. Regrettably, these vital elements come with a financial burden that these villages cannot bear. Consequently, children attend schools housed in dilapidated structures, devoid of essential supplies, such as books, pens, notebooks, uniform and shoes, and taught by educators with limited training and meager salaries.This distressing situation leads to a dire outcome: a significant number of children are forced to prematurely end their education to contribute to their family's income or enter child marriages. Dropping out limits their career choices, often resulting in repeating their parents' low-earning jobs and perpetuating the cycle of poverty.
Indonesia's Problem on
EDUCATION
By: Aurelia Maheswari Octa GunawanIndonesia’s education system accounts for the fourth largest education system in the world, consisting of more than 50 million students, 3 million teachers, and 300 thousand schools, as of ASEAN State of Education’s 2013 report, but does this say anything about its quality? Does quality reflect quantity?Indonesia keeps efforts to educate their people by inserting a constitutional requirement that all governments of all levels dedicate 20% of their budgets to education as well as having a compulsory requirement that all youth should have primary to high school education, ensuring that youth receive the basic education.However, despite this, a shocking fact remains that most of their students do not meet the national learning targets Indonesia has set for itself. On average, students are not able to pass the grade 12 National Exam and about 70% of children failed to perform basic literacy skills on the Program for International Student Assessment 2018.These issues prove to be concerning as Indonesian students are known to perform at a lower level in areas such as science, mathematics, and reading, which makes for a contrastingly high difference compared to its neighboring nations. Youth are the future of a nation, if a nation remains uneducated, it will not be able to develop and prosper in the way it should.To rid of weeds, you must pull at the root. The root of Indonesia’s issues in education may stem from multiple factors one of which is the fact that although basic education is compulsory, tuition for good quality education tends to be expensive. This impacts those below the poverty line most heavily first and foremost, as parents will be more concerned about prioritizing daily needs and expenses which can push them into lower-quality schools. These lower-quality schools, often have bad infrastructure with worn down buildings and lacking basic requirements such as chairs, desks, books, or technological devices, to name a few.Another main issue is the curriculum, this affects most of Indonesia’s students, causing them stress. The government is still in the process of figuring out a suitable curriculum, which causes the curriculum to change far too often, making students need to adapt all over again.“I think it could be better for both students and teachers, though it's definitely a long journey the government and communities are still trying to do. There were so many changes as an attempt on making things better for all sides around the country that even the teachers are now tired and confused,” A student from Jakarta recounts her experiences.She then adds on the newly placed Kurikulum Merdeka (Independent Curriculum):
“The Kurikulum Merdeka was an effort to improve in a way where students could choose specific topics they are interested in studying. However, this isn't done effectively due to the uneven spread of great teachers with the will and strength to teach this way. This curriculum is carried out in schools but some teachers wouldn't have classes since there aren't enough students interested in what they teach. There would inevitably be teachers who teach multiple or different subjects that they have not mastered due to the lack of teachers who actually master them.”Another student further adds on to this remarking that his sister’s feels stressed because of it, “The effort in trying to implement more project-based studies is great but then the teachers (like the ones in my school) aren’t able to direct us well.” The result is putting too pressure on students for a high demand of practical work, feeling like they are being chased by projects and homework.Not only that, everyday students need to wake up from 4 to 5 a.m. to get ready for school as a lot of the time school starts as early as 06:25 to 7:30 a.m., and after that, school typically last until 3 to 5 p.m. from Monday to Friday/Saturday when studies have found that the best times to start school is 8:30 to 9 a.m.Students usually have to juggle around 10 subjects with a lot of after-school work, causing them to stay up late throughout the night only leaving them a few hours of sleep. It is no wonder the leading mental health issues in Indonesia are stress and insomnia.This is incredibly damaging in general but most of us can only imagine how hard it must be for disabled students especially; almost 30% of disabled children in Indonesia end up not having access to education or dropping out due to lack of teacher training and adequate accommodations. It’s not rare for schools to sometimes outright refuse disabled students. Indonesia has an incredible shortage of special needs schools; 23 million Indonesians have been diagnosed with a disability however there are only about 2,300 special needs schools available. I can personally attest to the struggle of trying to find a good special needs school, as a disabled student in Bali, after countless searches, I still find none to this day. Although there are schools that pride themselves on inclusivity, it is not common for educators in these schools to truly understand the issues faced by disabled students and for them to actually have any disabled students in their school.We can prove that better school schedules and less homework can carve the path towards better education by looking at Finland, ranked number 3 for best education even though their school day starts at 9 to 9:45 a.m. and lasts about only 5 hours. Additionally, students rarely ever receive homework. This gives them the ability to get enough rest as well as have time for themselves which is important for youth development.Finland also places great importance on educators, having them spend significantly less time in the school building and having it be a requirement that teachers must have a master’s degree, which their government funds. Teachers who are less stressed and are more knowledgeable prove to be able to demonstrate their teaching skills to a better degree, helping students receive the good education they all deserve. In Indonesia, however, this is not at all the case. Here, teachers are forced to take on a lot of tasks with pay that can be as low as just Rp. 300,000 ($21), these factors can attribute a lot to their stress and interfere with their ability to teach. To add, a student also stated that sometimes teacher’s certificate can become an issue and that sometimes they don’t even have an appropriate major to teach so they aren’t really capable of teaching the students well.Their education system puts effort into being accommodating for everyone, disabled students are allowed to their full potential better and students are learning for the sake of learning, not just to pass requirements.Indonesia still has a long way to go in terms of education, which is one of our motivators here at DiverseEdu, where we continuously make efforts to improve Indonesia’s education through things like fundraising and offering free tutoring to those who are not able to afford it among others. Not just us, it is our responsibility as the citizens of our nation, especially educators and governments, to learn what we can do to improve education for our youth.