Improving Steps in Smartening the Nation’s Life

NELSON Mandela, a figure who won the Nobel Prize for World Peace from South Africa, stated that education is the most powerful weapon that can be used to change the world. According to him, education is the key to eliminating gender inequality, to reducing poverty, to creating sustainable lives, to preventing unnecessary death and disease, and to fostering peace. Education is the key to the progress of a nation and state.

The title of this essay takes part of a quote from the Preamble to the 1945 Constitution, the written basic law and constitution of the government of the Republic of Indonesia. The program to make the nation’s life smarter should be a priority for whoever is appointed to run the government. This article wants to examine the extent of the Indonesian government’s success in implementing this program regardless of which regime is in power.

Every year, the government allocates an education budget of 20% of the State Revenue and Expenditure Budget (APBN) and the amount continues to increase. The education budget distributed to several Ministries and Regional Governments in the form of Regional Transfers in 2014 was IDR 367.02 trillion and will continue to increase to IDR 665 trillion in 2024. However, increasing the education budget does not mean improving the quality of our education as has been studied by the World Bank since in 2013 in an article entitled Spending More or Spending Better: Improving Education Financing in Indonesia.

At the international level, Indonesian education occupies a number of poor positions. In the 2022 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) ranking, Indonesia is in 69th place out of 77 countries. PISA measures three abilities, namely mathematics, science and reading for students aged 15 years, unfortunately Indonesia’s PISA scores are decreasing for these three abilities.

Likewise, the ranking of mathematics and science assessments at the international level or Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMS) is in 40th position out of 42 countries. Far behind compared to our neighboring countries. A report from the educational, scientific and cultural body of the Association of Nations (UN), namely UNESCO, stated that only one in 1,000 Indonesians have a serious interest in reading, which has resulted in the Indonesian nation’s literacy level being ranked 60th out of 61 countries according to a study in World Literacy made by Central Connecticut State University. In higher education, university rankings are also no better than basic education, QS World University Ranking data places universities in the country in 39th place out of 50 countries and Universities21 in 50th place out of 50 countries.

Some articles about Indonesian education are quite heart-wrenching, such as: Indonesian Children Don’t Know How Stupid They Are; It turns out that 42% of Indonesian children are useless; Indonesia, Country of a Group of Stupid Children, which is written by Elizabeth Pisani, an American writer. A study from the Center for Educational Economics from England published in 2018 also stated that Indonesian children are ready to face the 21st century in the 31st century because of complacency, which means assuming everything is fine, aka high self-satisfaction with existing conditions and government programs in the field. just the same education, their term is BAUWMM (Business as Usual with More Money) aka the program is the same but the budget continues to be increased, only the name has been changed.

Data displayed on the Education Report Card website created by the Educational Assessment Center (Pusmendik) – Educational Standards, Curriculum and Assessment Agency of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology (Kemendikbud Ristek) from the results of the National Assessment (AN) or Minimum Competency Assessment (AKM) in 2022 states that less than 50% of students have reached the minimum competency limit for reading literacy at the elementary and middle school levels nationally, while at the SMA/K level the majority of students have reached the minimum competency limit for reading literacy but efforts are needed to encourage more many students become proficient. For numeracy, less than 50% of students have reached the minimum competency limit at the elementary, middle school and high school/K levels nationally. These achievements are truly ironic when compared with the tens of thousands of trillions of people’s money that has been disbursed since Law no. 20 of 2003 concerning the National Education System.

Likewise, the average score for the National Middle School Examination (UN) continues to decline from 61.81 in the 2014/2015 school year down to 50.80 in the 2017/2018 school year. A similar thing was also experienced by the average SMA/MA National Examination score from 58.27 in 2014/2015, dropping to 50.80 in the 2017/2018 academic year. Vocational Schools also have a similar trend, namely continuing to fall from 62.15 in 2014/2015 to 45.21 in 2017/2018. Although the Ministry of Education and Culture, Research and Technology always argues that the decline in the National Examination average is due to the implementation of the Computer-Based National Examination (UNBK) which prioritizes integrity. However, leaving this without any changes in the system or process is a decline in the quality of education.

The low quality of Indonesian education has an impact on the character of students. The community was truly shocked to see how brave a student was to challenge and strangle the teacher when reprimanded. We are also amazed to see how today’s students dare to make fun of their own teachers. And we also can’t believe how a student beat his teacher to death. All of this is the result of the national education system. In 2022, the Digital Civility Index (DCI) released by Microsoft ranked Indonesian netizens as the most barbaric/disrespectful netizens in Asia Pacific, this is the antithesis of education based on Pancasila. The quality of education here does not just stop at the condition of students, but also teachers, governance, curriculum, facilities and infrastructure.