TEACHER AND “DENSUS 88”

Indonesia is a ridiculous country. One more absurdity happened on April 23, 2008. On the day, a group of the Indonesian police’s anti-terrorist squad personnel raided Lubuk Pakam’s public senior high school (SMA Negeri 2) in North Sumatra province in response to information saying that the school’s teachers were breaching "state secrecy" -- the national examination. The information was accurate but what is in my mind inaccurate and questionable is the way of the police officers handles this problem. Should this matter be resolved by Densus 88, the police’s elite force whose main aim is fighting terrorists, not teachers, in the country?? Media reports said the police opened a warning shot to curb the teachers. A total of 18 teachers were reportedly caught red handed when attempting to correct the false answers of their students’ English subject examination papers in a room of the school. They did so because they did not have heart to see many of their students not able to answer the questions correctly. The teachers were concerned with the fate of their students because if they failed to get the passing grade, none could help them graduate from the school. The only tool that determines the final fate of any student in Indonesia nowadays is the passing grade of all subjects tested in the national examination that the ministry of education in Jakarta has set. Forget about the three-year-long teaching and learning process in the school and how much money that parents of every student in the country have invested for many years!! Teachers in the country have no longer had authority to determine their students’ fate, but the passing grade as imposed by the central government. The ministry of education in Jakarta has decided a minimal passing grade for each subject tested in the national examination. The school masters and teachers surrender to the ministry of education’s decision regardless of the differences of schools in urban and rural areas in terms of quality and facilities. It has become a public knowledge in Indonesia that the quality gap of education between Java and outside Java, between Jakarta and Papua, and even between urban and rural areas within a province, is quite wide. In terms of teacher quality, the availability of relatively good supporting facilities, such as school buildings, modern public and school libraries with excellent resources and computer, the gap among schools and provinces in the country are even like “day and night”. Despite these empirical facts, the passing grade and questions of the national examination are decided and made by Jakarta’s authorities. If a student who is good at gymnastics, playing soccer or badminton, but fails in the English or mathematics, he or she will never graduate. The central government does believe that the national examination imposed as the only tool for deciding the final fate of any student (so far junior and senior high school students) is a good remedy for improving the quality of the country’s human resources and competitiveness of the nation. But, the central government has forgotten its accountability to provide schools in urban and remote areas of the country with quality teachers and sufficient facilities before imposing the horrible policy! The ministry of education is blinded by its weakness to give quality but affordable education to all children of the nation. Instead, it puts this burden to the shoulders of every teacher in the country whose monthly salary is only enough to support their living for ten days. Now, the image of our poor teachers is not different from that of the terrorists, such as the most wanted fugitive, Noordin M.Top of Malaysia. The members of Densus 88 squad involving in the attack on the poor teachers in Lubuk Pakam regency in North Sumatra last April just followed the order of their commander. But did they consider the impact of their acts on the psyche of teachers and students in the country? Why do they not do the same to big corruptors – the people who have stolen the wealth of the nation that can actually be used to build thousands of good schools and improve the teachers’ welfare?