Improving Indonesian Education for Marginal Society

Improving Indonesian Education for Marginal Society Anastasia Marcelina Surabaya Pelita Harapan Surabaya University

Improving Indonesian Education for Marginal Society Abstract

In Indonesia today, we can see that there is a big gap between the education for rich and poor people. Education for rich people seems to always develop into a better system but in other side, education for poor people does not develop at all to the next level. Furthermore, education is a main pillar of a nation. Without equal education between groups of people in Indonesia, we can not sustain this nation. The purpose of this paper is writer wants to know what is the main reason it is so hard to improve the education for marginal society. Eventhough government already helps the marginal society with many programs being held, it is still difficult to improve the education for marginal society. To explore the causes of this issue, writer uses the combination of closed ended and open-ended questionnaire methods to the marginal society living in one location in Surabaya city. The reason why it is so hard to improve the education for marginal society is because the poor people has many problems such as economic, geographic location and also the equal education issues. Keywords : education, marginal society, Indonesia

Improving Indonesian Education for Marginal Society Introduction

Education is the main pillar of nation development. Education is a fundamental thing to improve the quality of human life and guarantee social improvement (testat08, 2010). A nation can be measured from its education level because education is about character development and also identity of the nation. However, we admit the quality of education in Indonesia now is not too good. For better Indonesian people in the future, we need education transformation. Education transformation is an important thing to do because education is a human investment and a place to engineered human resources. The main cause of low level education in our nation is actually cause by disability of people to continue their school. It can not be denied that education fees increase annually. Yet, people should not assume this to be an obstacle because a decent education is a right that we have as Indonesian people (article 28 verse 1 UUD 1945). Beside that, many programs was run by government in education field such as BOS grant and subsidies. All Indonesian citizen have the right to get a decent education, not from middle to top class, but people from low class such as people from marginal society also have this right. However, there is a contrast in reality, the education seems just develop only on middle to top class people, they are not equally developed. This case proves that government is not really responsive about educational equity. If the education for marginal society achieved the next level, then the quality of human resources will be improved and it can be more reliable and professional. Furthermore, the improvement of human relationship will have very big impact for Indonesia development.

Improving Indonesian Education for Marginal Society Review

The History of Education in Indonesia Education in Hindu-Buddha Period The past education system is well-recorded in Hindu-Buddha period. Hindu-Buddha education system was known with karsyan. Karsyan was a place for hermits and people who retired from the glamour of world with a purpose to get closer with the highest god. Karsyan was divided into 2 categories, patapan and mandala. 1. Patapan means ascetics place, where someone excile himself until he succeed to find the clue or something that he wants. Tapa means self resist from all lust, and people who did tapa get a special guidance from the teacher. 2. Mandala means a sacred place where all the regilion activities happen, a district especially for wiku / priests, disciples and their followers. Nagara / capital city was rounded by mandala. Mandala and nagara had

dependency on each other. Nagara needs mandala for spiritual and moral support, because mandala was a center of supernatural power. Thus, the people lived in mandala had to do tapa. Country prosperity, people safety and the king glory highly depends on kings attitude about religion. Education in Islamic Period The education system in Islamic period was an aculturation between patapan in Hindu-Buddha education system with uzlah(being alone) in Islamic education. This aculturation appeared in the system followed from Hindu-Buddha education system, where teacher and student lived in the same district. This education system was known as pondok pesantren. Like mandala, in this Islamic period, it called depok, that became a name of a place in Islamic towns, like Yogyakarta, Cirebon and Banten. The word depok itself came from padepokan originate from patapan which means an education place. Education in Colonial Period In this time, education was more like a figure who fight for education right. This matter happened because education system that applied was being discriminative. It means just Dutchman and his descendants could went to school, eventhough native went to the school, it is because they came from priyayi class. In practice, the school adopt European education system.

Improving Indonesian Education for Marginal Society

Then, there began an awareness to strugle education for all people, including natives. They establish many institution that attract native people like Taman Siswa and Muhammadiyah. In this period, European system and traditional (pesantren) were equally developed. Education Today Now, many education system is adopted, developed, and adjusted. Many institutions is established and they just lost their essential, place of learning. Afterwards, there come an idea about home schooling, an education that does not depend on formal institution but suitable with the current curriculum. Definition of Equal Education Equal education includes 2 main aspects : Equality (has the same opportunity to obtain the education). Equity (justice to get the same education among various group in society).

The access about equal education means all school-age citizens has the opportunity of education, while access to education could be called fair if between groups can enjoy the same education (testat08, 2010). The Poverty Fact in Indonesia BPS (Badan Pusat Statistik) stated that the poverty number on this March 2011 reach 30,02 million (12,49%). This is a statistical fact as a reference and an overview of how poverty still entrenched in this country. We can measured the poverty with or without the poverty line, the concept that rely on poverty line is called relative poverty while the concept that does not rely on poverty line is called absolute poverty (Tambunan, 2001 as cited from testat08, 2010). 1. The relative poverty is a measurement about the gap in earning distribution, usually it defines in relation to the average level in question. 2. The absolute poverty is a degree about low poverty, where needs of life can not be fulfilled. In education framework, poverty has always been a barrier even obstacle to create the equal educaton itself. Until now, education discrimination between rich and poor though is still always there.

Improving Indonesian Education for Marginal Society Method Participants

We randomly selected 20 people from one of marginal society living in Surabaya city. Materials We used the questionnaire with the 10 combination of closed-ended and open-ended questions. This is the questionnaire form example :

Improving Indonesian Education for Marginal Society Design The independent variables were age and used to get the education. Procedure

We interviewed the people individually at one session that lasted 15 minutes in average. We explained to each people that he or she would answer 10 questions.

Improving Indonesian Education for Marginal Society Result

Satisfaction Level of Education

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

Latest Education Level

No, 40%

Yes, 60%

Table 1

Table 2

From the table 1, we knew that 60% of respondents answered they satisfied with their current education. The latest education they achieved were varies, from kindergarten level, primary school level, junior high school level and senior high school level. However none of them achieved the university level. This can be seen from table 2. From table 3, 50% respondents answered that they entered their school actually because it was cheap. The other 35% said the location was near to their house, and 25% respondents said because the quality was good enough. There were other reason for 15% respondents answers.

Improving Indonesian Education for Marginal Society

Table 3

Table 4

The Reason Why I Entered This School

50%

Consideration to Continue Education

70%

35% 25% 15% 5% Cheap Near the House Good Quality Other Cheap Near the House Good Quality 25%

0 Other

There were 60% respondents who answered that they want to continue the education to the higher level. When the respondents wanted to continue, they searched for the cheapest school or university (70% respondents answered with this reason) then the quality and other reasons comes second. We can look the result from table 4 above.
Table 5

40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Civil Servant Farmer

Parents Job

Entrepreneur

Labour

Other

Although they wanted to continue the education, their family was actually not support them. More than 66% respondents answered that their family disagree with the ideas. From the table 5, we knew that the parents of respondents were farmer and labour with they monthly income about 1 1,5 million. The others were driver and scavenger with the monthy income started from 0 1 million.

Improving Indonesian Education for Marginal Society Discussion

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The reasons why people from marginal society can not improve their education are economic problem, geographic problems and the quality itself. The poverty fact in Indonesia right now is really miserable. Poverty is a complex thing. Poverty has a connection with human resources. The poverty come up because of unquality of human resources and vice versa. According to the BPS (Badan Pusat Statistic) record the poverty number on this March 2011 reach 30,02 million (12,49%). This become the most important problem because the right way to solve this is from the education itself. However, people from marginal society do not really care about the education. They feel satisfied enough with their current education level although they admit that their school actually does not has the good quality of education. The education fees were cheap, that was why they want to entered the school. As the level of education going higher, the more expensive the education fees incurred by individuals. They consider there are much more important than wasting the money to go to school. As seen, education fees made the quality of education for marginal society is lower than the middle-to-top class society. Geographic location is also became the reason why marginal society has low quality of education. Marginal society used to lived in in slum areas so the education that entered to their places is minimal. I think it is important to first wake their awareness about how important the education is. If that awareness does not awake, it is useless eventhough the government helped with many programs. We need to make sure that they really know what is the importance of education. Education is a fundamental thing to improve the quality of human life and guarantee social improvement (testat08, 2010). With the good quality of education, they can improve their life to a better life. The good quality of education also guarantee their social improvement.

Improving Indonesian Education for Marginal Society

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We also need the political will from government to pay more attention for education field. The transformation of education is the main important thing in building a nation. Actually, government had done many effort to improve the education level from 1984, Indonesia government tried to decent the primary formal education continued with 9 year compulsory. In addition, government has intensified to provide assistance in the form of scholarship, such as Foster Parents Movement and School Operational Assistance (testat08, 2010). The transfer from oil subsidy allocation by government are partly earmarked for education and health section maybe create comfort at first, although the education subsidy actually did not has connection with the increasing of oil fuel cost. What the government is planning now maybe could not reach all the marginal society. It really takes a long time. However, the important thing is we are already started the way.

Improving Indonesian Education for Marginal Society Works Cited

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Membangun Pendidikan Mengatasi Pendidikan. (2006, November 8). Dipetik November 14, 2011, dari Editorial Media Massa Indonesia:

http://opini.wordpress.com/2006/11/08/membangun-pendidikan-mengatasikemiskinan/ Bayu Galih, Rusyanti, Rian Timadar, Khairun Nisa. (2008, May). Sedikit Uraian Sejarah Pendidikan. Dipetik November 19, 2011, dari Tinulad:

http://tinulad.wordpress.com/sedikit-uraian-sejarah-pendidikan/ Fuadi, K. (2009, May 13). Pendidikan dan Kemiskinan. Dipetik November 14, 2010, dari Sebelum Berkalang Tanah:

http://fuadinotkamal.wordpress.com/2009/05/13/pendidikan-dan-kemiskinan/ Sedikit Uraian Sejarah Pendidikan. (t.thn.). Dipetik November 19, 2011, dari Tinulad: http://tinulad.wordpress.com/sedikit-uraian-sejarah-pendidikan/ testat08. (2010, June 20). PEMERATAAN AKSES PENDIDIKAN MASYARAKAT MISKIN SEBAGAI SOLUSI PEMBANGUNAN DI INDONESIA. Dipetik November 14, 2011, dari testat08's blog: http://testat08.student.ipb.ac.id/2010/06/20/pemerataan-aksespendidikan-masyarakat-miskin-sebagai-solusi-pembangunan-di-indonesia/ Zaman, M. B. (t.thn.). Pendidikan: Senjata Canggih Pemutus Mata Rantai Kemiskinan. Dipetik November 2011, 2011, dari Tunas Indonesia: http://tunas-

indonesia.org/2011/09/pendidikan-senjata-canggih-pemutus-mata-rantai-kemiskinan/