The cases related to corruption never stop in our country. As the corruption becomes widespread cases, from the government officials to businessmen, it is very urgent for us to protect our society from this action.
Regarding to acute corruption phenomena, Thomas Lickona (1992) states corruption becomes the hardest demoralizing of the society. This is because corruption doesn’t only destroy the individuals, but more than that, it creates problem towards the social life and norm. It infringes the law.
This demoralizing will cause long term effects toward the vanishing of our character as society. One thing that can uphold the problem is by re-moralizing the society through a good education system. This is to create new (better) character of our society.
As we know, education is to give society a diverse point of view toward life. It is a tool to create educated people. We have to protect our youth with good education.
Instead of squealing with the case of corruption, the government should prioritize education as a media to bear new society, who can do something properly, in the best way. This will shape the people mind about whether corruption is good or not. Moreover, it is expected that the education should not only give the perspective about the concept of true or false. This emphasizes on introducing the habits of how to do something good.
When having good habitual activities is as the characters of the society, the society always respect the others’ rights. The demoralizing as like caused by corruption will not exist because the corruption is something that the youth don’t want to do. This is the new character of our society: educated and respectful people.
Earth is a blue planet that is covered by glimmering white clouds. The question is, how long will our generations see the world like this?
People from all over the world gathered at the climate change conference (UNFCCC) in Copenhagen, Denmark, last December. The representatives from 190 countries talked about issues related to climate change, such as global warming in certain time periods: 2010, 2020, and 2030 - as if the problem of the climate change was related to future decades.
Since a significant temperature increase in the Arctic was first reported in the 1990s, the amount of ice that has been melting is getting bigger. Hemingway's The Snow of Kilimanjaro immortalizes the memory of real snow on the highest mountain in Africa.
As the chyrosphere, or ice area, on earth is getting smaller, the surface of the sea is rising. By 2100, it is predicted, more than 40 archipelagic countries will no longer exist. Worse still, as the population grows, future generations will have limited space.
What can we learn from this? While the 190-country conference didn't create any binding agreements on how to curb and solve global climate change problems, together we can do something big to this small planet.
Our country is one of the countries that support programs to conserve rainforests. Indonesia is determined to decrease air pollution by 26 percent in the next decade and if developed countries do give their support, the decrease will be even greater.
The idea of "one man one tree" should be practiced in our daily lives to contribute to reforestation efforts. Reforestation will help to make the world's climate become more stable.
And those actions need not to be delayed or just planned for future decades; we have to take action today. It can't wait.
This is one figure of hundreds similar schools in Indonesia. Instead of creating blur policy and conducting "business" and even standardizing the school, the government should have more concerned to this problem.
The current issues regarding the processs of entering new school, many kinds of severe protests coming from the parents of the new students. Those protests are as regards to the expensive tuitions and other costs released by the school. Just imagine, just for regristration, the parents must pay hundreds thousands for junior high school level whereas this is for state schools, that should have been pro-society. It is indeed a high price just for regristation in our society.
This market mecanism is clear seen at current school system, especially during the process of registration for new students. It is assumed that schools are not the best place to study and learn at, but there are just places where professional workers—not teachers—who work under the buearucracy pressure, and the headmasters as the makelar who are profit-oriented at all.
What is happening now next is that school is just black market who hides behind the value of education—and also the education system. If it is so, then how come our generation will become better and educated? Or, might we just be waiting for worse generation—who are money oriented as well—in this corrupt country?
This market mechanism happens during the school year. In the early year, weird habbits like “reserving special places”, prioritizing the rich, bribbery for some students are common and acceptable culture (event hough it is hard for me to name as culture).
The next agenda is the students are the victim of textile market by forcing to buy expensive uniform, shoes, and also other atributes, which the price is higher than normal. That is not finish yet. The next is, the school becomes the market of expensive coursebooks for some publishers or agents who have deal with the school principlas.
Ironically, the coursebook is always changing every year. There are some speculation that there is bonus for such schools which are able to sell the coursebook to the students. The local mayor or education department of course know about this policy. Even, some schools argued that this policy has been legalized by the school committee.
Why do the schools always require the students to buy the expensive coursebooks? The people who know about the students’ need are the teachers themselves. How great when the teachers are eager to say no to their head master to apply the policy on “selling” the expensive coursebooks.
There’re still alternatives for the affordable and qualified coursebook such as Electronic Coursebook (BSE) that belongs to governmnent’s programs. Recent study in my Instruction to Material Development (IMD) shows that BSE have great quality in materials and also the methodology. Don’t the principlas or the local major realize this program? Otherwise, their policies regarding to such kind of requiring students to buy expensive coursebooks from certain publisher should be questioned, and tend to be a corruption hiding behind the legal policy.
During the time also, there are several private course institution offering their service in computer, IQ, sempoa, fast-way to face national examination, etc. Their arrivals should contribute the school to become a market, market for profit-oriented business. Instead of providing facilities for students to expand their knowledge outside school, the coming of the private course justify that the school is trying to run away from the problem.
Moreover, they argue that it is important for their national examination preparation. If that is so, why do the school give the “responsibility” to the private course. Doesn’t it mean that the school give up before going to war, regarding the national examination. If it is not, the school is indeed supporting the growth of liberation in education.
Those unclear programs and tuition cannot be justified. Those are just other burdens for the poor parents of the students—and, contribute to make them poorer.
The justification of such “market movement” in education institution will not improve the quality of our education—and the generation. This rather shape their mindset to become market oriented—profit oriented mindset—that might lead them to justify every way to conduct something to solve problems. In the last, they potentionally become the next corrupt generation in this corrupt country.
Education institution, especially school, should have been free from those kind of silly policies. Those policies make the school no longer become school in which educate the students. Instead, it will create another uneducated and unrespectful generation.
In general, the function of schools, education department, local major, school committee is to educate the students. It is not to become calo, makelar, rentenair, or another illegal business seller. Intertwining those education and market mindset will decrease the value of education, and will demoralize the people.
The current issue regarding regional conflicts in this country shows how people don’t want to solve the problem peacefully. It is just because difference of ethnics or religions, and they don’t want to respect each other, people should kill each other.
What a severe life, when we cannot understand and respect the diversities in our society. This is because they don’t want to think rationally about the core of the conflicts. They just want to solve problems with one belief: their kind is the best, the others are not better.
It might be true that we cannot blame those people directly. Then, we should know first that the nature of certain society is always to create domination. A society always sees and judges the others from their own perspective, and creates ethnocentric perspective—primordial.
The problem is, in Indonesia with many cultures and ethnics, this primordial society will suffer the value of unity in diversity, instead of creating high pride of being unity. We can imagine, when every society with its own culture, with its own point of view, has its own judgment toward the other cultures, the next thing is recession from one culture with the others. Should we “compete” each other just to show that we are better whereas we are in one country?
With this problem that we have, we cannot change their culture, nor change the society. What we can do is to “neutralize” their perspective through education. The basic education that we should give is the knowledge cross-culture understanding. Cross-culture understanding will give wide information not about their own culture or society only, but it rather provides information about the other cultures.
Like current integrated curriculum in school, students in primary school in one region will learn culture from the other regions. This information may be able to be integrated into social course, science, and even religion course. The point is to lead the students to think out of the box, to know the similarity, the variety, the differences to respect, not to compare.
Understanding the other culture will create objective perspective in society to the other civilization. This objectivity will create acceptance toward the other cultures. In Indonesia, it is very important to have this perspective. In this diverse country, we need respect—respect to our culture as a nation.
The diversity in our society will mean nothing when we cannot keep them together. The diversity of the culture, the people, and the nature is a high prestige of a nation. Indonesia has it, and we are Indonesian people must keep it, not the others.
