EDUCATION IN INDONESIA

Assalamualaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh.

The honorable principle of Madrasah Tsanawiyah Ash-Shomadiya, Mr. Abdul Malik, M.Pd.I,
The Honorable Principle Of Madrasah Aliyah Ash-shomadiyah Mr. Sudari, S.Pd.I and The
honorable one chief of Yayayasan Pondok Pesantren Ash-Shomadiyah Mr. Muhammad
Amin Muchtar, all teachers and administration staffs of Ash-Shomadiyah and all my beloved
friends.

Before I begin to give a speech, I would like to invite you all to thank Allah the Almighty,
Who has given us Mercy and Blessing, so we can meet together in this blessing place. And
also let’s deliver sholawat and salam to our prophet Muhammad SAW, Who has brought us
from the darkness to the brightness, so we are always in the right path.

It be a great honor for me, to stand right here in front of you all to give a speech about
education under the title "Education in Indonesia"

Indonesian is a great country. It has so many natural resources that can be used. It has so
many beautiful palaces that can mesmerize people. It is so beautiful to live here peacefully
with different cultures, languages, and religions. However, why are there still many people
who live under poverty in this country? The only answer to this question is because our
human resources are still low in the term of education.

If you have ever heard about the news about our international education rank, you would be
surprised. As quoted form Education for All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report 2011 which is
published by UNESCO and launched in New York on Sunday, 1/3/2011, our international
education rank is at 69th place from 129 surveyed countries all over the world. This rank is
lower than in 2010.

It opens a question that runs in my head, what happen with our education? Indonesia is a
great country with many talented young generations. It was undoubted again that there are
so many Indonesian students who win the international education Olympiads such as
mathematics, chemical, physics and other. But why our international education rank is still
low. So what happen with with our education?

Ladies and gentlemen

There must be a reason why our human resources and our global rank in education are still
low. One of the reasons is that our education is expensive. For middle up to high class people
the cost of our education is nothing. But for those who live in lower economic class, the cost
of our education is beyond their reach.Many of them even abandon their duty to go to school
just because they have to work to fulfill their needs. Our government has made a policy
recently to overcome the problem in our education. The policy is increasing national
educational budget up to 20% from APBN. This budget later on is used to make education is
reachable for low economic level society; to improve teachers’ quality with a program which
well known as “sertifikasi”; and to provide school facilitie such as library, classroom,
laboratory, and sport hall.

Ladies and gentlemen.

We hope the policy that the government made will make our educational quality better. Of
course as a student, we don’t just sit down and relax without doing something. Good or bad
the quality of education of our country also depend us. If we want to change our bad
educational paradigm, let’s begin with improving our achievement with studying hard for the
sake of our education.

I hope this speech that I deliver today will be useful for you all. Thank you so much for your
attention. The last I say:

Wasalamualaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh