Sunday, July 19, 2009

International Symposium 2009 PART I

International Symposium 2009
Vision and Mission of Indonesian Intellectuals Abroad : Development Strategy of Indonesia towards 2020 Goal
PART I

That was how this symposium was called. The somewhat grandiose title of this symposium seemed to be promising some sort of significant changes or breakthroughs for our nation. Now how did it really go? Here are my personal accounts on the symposium.

I, honestly, have never participated in any of the International Indonesian Students Association (PPI) activities. Not that I wasn't willing to, but simply because we don't have one in the place where I study. However, I actively involved in my University's Indonesian students community, and have together with Indonesians students in Yale University and Cornell University initiated a discussion group, in which we meet bi-annually and take turns to present papers on some particular topics. Anyway, I just heard about this International Symposium two days before I went there and swiftly decided to participate. Without any pre-arranged transportation, I hitchiked a car to Amsterdam then took a train to The Hague.

The first speaker, Prof. Fasli Jalal (Indonesian Higher Education Department Executive), had already been talking about varieties of Indonesian students achievement abroad when I arrived at the auditorium of Museon Building The Hague. In his lecture, he mentioned students abroad who won the international robot competition and researchers who founded new species of flowers. From his keynote remarks it is implied that Indonesians are capable of being the pioneers in all areas of sciences. I found that his remark was rather entertaining – it was really fun to see what sort of rocket science inventions Indonesian students have achieved. However, I was rather concerned on how only those rocket science findings were highlighted. We have the tendency of only appreciating high-end achievement or by the number of degree that one hold. This would further make education as an exclusive matter. We should start caring about how to make good education as something that everyone should enjoy.

The second noteworthy remark were delivered by Mr. Anis Baswedan, the rector of Paramadina University who is also the youngest rector in Indonesia so far. Two other professors also joined him in this session about democracy in Indonesia. He eloquently identifies the problems that hindered our development. He thinks that we should now start to pay more attention to the so-called ‘architecture’ of Indonesian politics. In the basics of his political architecture, he divided the whole political scene as ‘input’, ‘process’, and ‘output’. Reformation era in Indonesia has liberalized the input for politics, but then the output comes out dissatisfying due to the lack of emphasize in processing the input. Institutions should reform themselves, to make them more effective to handle the input of democracy. Media should also play a constructive way to resonance the voices of the people. On the discussion session, I asked Mr. Baswedan what he things about the political parties in Indonesia and their programs. To me, so far political parties seemed to function more as self-identification. People mainly vote for party, which they feel they associate the most as a person. All parties that compete in the election varied widely corresponding to the diversity of Indonesian society, but I could barely tell the difference in their policy, let alone the platform in which they stood for. Mr Baswedan responded that we have not yet come to the phase where the parties could translate what they are fighting for in concrete policies stance.

Other activities during that day include: super-delicious Indonesian lunch (but unfortunately led to long late night toilet queue), and some afternoon talks that I didn’t find particularly interesting.

2 comments:

  1. Regarding to the education issues, yesterday afternoon there's a demonstration in the train station of my my campus in depok. They are shouting about UU BHP and Biaya Operasional Pendidikan Berkeadilan. Well, i don't decide my stance yet, regarding his issue, coz i still find it's quite complicated. In one side, we all want a better higher education towards more fundings by the government. Therefore, i think government can't stand alone, there's should be a significant contribution by the citizens. Yesterday shouted that the higher education in University of Indonesia should be free. then, i think, how could it be free under current nation's condition.

    Well, i guess, as i will continue my study abroad, discussions is one of the way to contribute toward the nation's development. How do you think, Erwin ? Are there any other way besides discussion that have direct impacts ?

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  2. Well I would agree with you. We can never hope for the government, especially in the case of Indonesia, to solely be responsible for the education. I do agree that basic educations should be available regardless of financial conditions, but higher educations requires substantially more money than the basic ones, because not only it needs facility for teaching but it also need to provide resources needed for research in order to be considered as a university.

    Two very contradicting example that I have experienced in the last one year was the education system in Germany and United States. In Germany all the universities are fully funded by the government and students pay virtually no tuition (until recent reforms in some states). The facility in their university is quite decent, although they are lagging far behind United States in terms of innovation in education. In order to have this system, a country needs to have a good social security mechanism, so that citizens could contribute appropriately.
    On the other hand, education in the US are insanely expensive. My school (it's a private school however) cost $36,000 a year just for the tuition (thanks to the scholarship I pay $0). However, almost half of the students are on some sort of Financial Aid; may it be loan, federal grant, or scholarship. Even more, that tuition doesn't cover the cost of this school. Most of the source of income we got from donations from our Alumni. Just come to schools in America and you will find that each building is name after different Alumni.

    So how about Indonesia? We don't really have social security mechanism, nor do we have adequate income transfer system. Rising tax to pay for free universities would make no sense at this moment. What we should do is strengthening the ties between schools and their alumni, especially for top universities like UI or ITB whose alumnus are spread in top companies across the globe. We should think it as partnership - a mutual relations. The alumni gives money as a gesture of gratitude for providing them good education needed for their career, and the university supplying good graduates needed for those companies to further grow.

    So thats my two cents

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