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Why did we create the Korupsi (Corruption).Org Website?
Firstly, we want to support the Government's Anti-Corruption Policy.
Secondly, we at Pendidikan (Education) Network receive questions every day asking "why does education continue to become more expensive but the quality doesn't appear to improve".
Many people believe that they understand the problems and frequently provide solutions, for example:
- Schools and Universities have to reduce their prices - How is this possible? In fact education in this country is already relatively cheap especially compared to other countries, and we need to improve upon the existing quality.
- Change the system - Change the system a 1000 times and there will be no significant effect because the system is not the problem, the system is just a scapegoat.
- Change to religious-based education - If this is the solution why do the majority of students seeking better quality education go to Western countries?
- Raise the skills of our teachers - With the very low salary levels, and an atmosphere that certainly doesn't inspire, any development in this area is extremely limited.
We are continually discussing issues which in fact are just side issues, while the real problem is corruption. The issues raised above are certainly not the main issues. With corruption eating away up to 30% of the total national budget (does this include "price markups" and the salaries of non-productive public servants), and a national budget allocation for education of less than ... ? [ Stop Press! - 19,3 percent APBN ] [ Careful of Public Deception ]
In a wealthy country, like Indonesia, education should be free till the end of High School (funds provided by the government). Education is the most important issue in a developing country. If our natural resources were well managed, and with fertile soil everywhere, we should be one of the richest countries in Southeast Asia. But if we look at the issue of education, our citizens are continually crying-out for scholarships and educational financial support like beggars in the street.
In the 70s and 80s the quality of education in Indonesia and Malaysia was very similar and in fact a number of Indonesian teachers were taken to Malaysia to assist their education program. Now the education in Malaysia is amongst the best in the world, however, Indonesia hasn't progressed and now the cost of even low quality education is becoming beyond the reach of the majority of Indonesian citizens.
We can discuss many other issues but we cannot hope for any significant progress until education receives an allocation of at least 25% of the national budget and is "free from the greedy hands of corruption".
Read the following and add your voice:
(responses will be mainly in Indonesian).
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