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According to James Riady, a problem is that underperformance of the Indonesian educational institutions and Indonesian students. As evidence of the poor quality of an Indonesian education, Riady mentions that Indonesia is one of those rare countries in which merit-based scholarships outstrip demand. More precisely, scholarships reserved exclusively for Indonesians for top-tier international universities goes untapped. Why? Because Indonesian students do not have the educational standards to be able to compete and gain acceptance into these schools.
January 15, 2010
Top-Flight Foreign-Educated Graduates Can Help Indonesia Go Truly Global
With the appointment of Muhammad Nuh as minister of education, much has been said about the importance of our domestic education agenda.
Equally important, but yet to receive its fair share of coverage, is the ministry’s global agenda — the need to cultivate a rising number of Indonesians who are educated abroad.
This is important not because our domestic educational institutions are not competent — many of today’s greatest business and government leaders are entirely the product of an Indonesian education — but rather because it is important to build a critical mass of citizens who understand the complexity of the world and can serve as bridges to other cultures and communities.
Traditionally, our nation’s place in the world has been framed by its leading role in Southeast Asia, similar to how Brazil was seen in relation to South America, South Africa to Africa and India to South Asia. With the inclusion of these four regional leaders in the G-20, Indonesia must prepare itself to take on a role that goes beyond national and regional concerns to include leadership on complex global issues.
Indonesia is expected to help shape the discourse on international issues — this makes the ability to bridge cultures critical. To this end, we need to move away from xenophobic sentiments that promote false perceptions of the world and perpetuate obsolete policies based on national insecurity. We need ideas that embrace globalization and place Indonesia in a position of influence. A solid group of foreign-educated citizens is essential to achieving this role.
Prior to the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis, there was a steady flow of students — both self- and government-funded — to the best institutions in the world. Today, with the exception of the Foreign Ministry, there seems to be no systematic program that selects and funds students to attend foreign universities. As the fourth most populous country in the world, Indonesia is under-represented in almost any top foreign educational institution.
This is not about money. If you think funding is the problem, consider these facts: Almost every year the Jakarta-based Sampoerna Foundation has more available scholarships than students that qualify for them. Granted, one of the requirements is acceptance to a top 10 business school — no easy task — but surely out of 230 million people there ought to be enough students to fill the slots. Harvard also has a need-based fund for Indonesian students, but this remains untouched. The National University of Singapore has trouble finding three qualified candidates to enter its School of Public Policy on a fully funded basis. The Wharton School of Business, too, has scholarships available but was not able to offer admissions to any Indonesian students in 2008.
Indonesia is probably the only country where the supply of scholarships exceeds demand.
This pattern is troubling. Although funding will always pose a challenge to students, it is not the main problem. There is also no reason why our citizens should be considered inherently less qualified or intellectual. On the contrary, there is ample evidence to believe that the brightest of our students are among the best in the world. National law schools that compete in the International Moot Court Competition, an annual event in Washington that attracts more than 500 schools from 80 countries, consistently finish in the top ranks. In 2009, Pelita Harapan University ranked 13th, and the University of Indonesia finished 28th. Similarly, Indonesians who compete in the Physics Olympics and other international competitions do very well.
If the problem is neither funding nor the ability to compete, then what is it? I would suggest two reasons — infrastructure and preparation — both of which present the Ministry of Education with much-needed areas for improvement.
Infrastructure is the ability of our nation to identify talented students and to grant them opportunities to pursue a career path and compete for scholarships. Singapore is one country that does this particularly well — so well that it is able to spot talent not only within its own borders, but in neighboring school systems also. Indonesian and Indian students with great academic potential — as evidenced by winning a Unesco award, for example — are immediately offered scholarships to the country’s top institutions.
With only four million people, this task is much easier for Singapore than it is for Indonesia. Nevertheless, the same idea applies here, just on a larger scale. The government must create a systematic program through which students with the right talent and character can be identified. The mechanism to spot talent must be decentralized to the local and regional level, and once identified, candidates should be aggregated at the national level where these students can compete with each other.
Funding 330 students (10 students from each of 33 provinces) at a per student cost of $20,000 per year amounts to an annual total cost of $6.6 million — less than 0.1 percent of the ministry’s annual budget. If matching programs are created in conjunction with universities and the private sector, perhaps twice the number of students could be funded for the same amount of money. Over 10 years, more than 3,000 top-flight foreign graduates would become part of our work force.
Secondly, preparation is needed. This can be broken down into long and short term. Long-term preparation refers to developing sophisticated skills that require a significant horizon to mature, such as English-language proficiency and the ability to express oneself in speech and writing. The only way to dramatically improve this on a national scale is to improve the entire public school system. In the near future, it is unlikely that our national school system will be able to teach English at the level that is expected at foreign universities, meaning students who are determined to study abroad will have to invest extra effort.
Furthermore, there should be resources and guidance for students on how to put together a strong application — this is the short-term aspect. Many students who are otherwise qualified fail because they don’t understand what is expected of them in an application. Unlike applying to local universities, applications to foreign schools require a plethora of documents, test scores, personal essays, recommendations and, in some cases, interviews. Those unfamiliar with the process can get lost in the jargon and maze of requirements.
In the long run, education in Indonesia should still be built on providing access to education at a mass level. Our domestic education agenda remains the key. Even a few hundred thousand foreign graduates cannot, without the support of an educated population, lift Indonesia to a sustainable level of social, political and economic development.
Nevertheless, we can greatly benefit from having a critical mass of foreign graduates who understand the complexities of the outside world, can help facilitate knowledge transfer and can bring Indonesia to the world and the world to Indonesia.
John Riady is editor at large of t he Jakarta Globe. He can be reached at [email protected].
January 15, 2010
Top-Flight Foreign-Educated Graduates Can Help Indonesia Go Truly Global
With the appointment of Muhammad Nuh as minister of education, much has been said about the importance of our domestic education agenda.
Equally important, but yet to receive its fair share of coverage, is the ministry’s global agenda — the need to cultivate a rising number of Indonesians who are educated abroad.
This is important not because our domestic educational institutions are not competent — many of today’s greatest business and government leaders are entirely the product of an Indonesian education — but rather because it is important to build a critical mass of citizens who understand the complexity of the world and can serve as bridges to other cultures and communities.
Traditionally, our nation’s place in the world has been framed by its leading role in Southeast Asia, similar to how Brazil was seen in relation to South America, South Africa to Africa and India to South Asia. With the inclusion of these four regional leaders in the G-20, Indonesia must prepare itself to take on a role that goes beyond national and regional concerns to include leadership on complex global issues.
Indonesia is expected to help shape the discourse on international issues — this makes the ability to bridge cultures critical. To this end, we need to move away from xenophobic sentiments that promote false perceptions of the world and perpetuate obsolete policies based on national insecurity. We need ideas that embrace globalization and place Indonesia in a position of influence. A solid group of foreign-educated citizens is essential to achieving this role.
Prior to the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis, there was a steady flow of students — both self- and government-funded — to the best institutions in the world. Today, with the exception of the Foreign Ministry, there seems to be no systematic program that selects and funds students to attend foreign universities. As the fourth most populous country in the world, Indonesia is under-represented in almost any top foreign educational institution.
This is not about money. If you think funding is the problem, consider these facts: Almost every year the Jakarta-based Sampoerna Foundation has more available scholarships than students that qualify for them. Granted, one of the requirements is acceptance to a top 10 business school — no easy task — but surely out of 230 million people there ought to be enough students to fill the slots. Harvard also has a need-based fund for Indonesian students, but this remains untouched. The National University of Singapore has trouble finding three qualified candidates to enter its School of Public Policy on a fully funded basis. The Wharton School of Business, too, has scholarships available but was not able to offer admissions to any Indonesian students in 2008.
Indonesia is probably the only country where the supply of scholarships exceeds demand.
This pattern is troubling. Although funding will always pose a challenge to students, it is not the main problem. There is also no reason why our citizens should be considered inherently less qualified or intellectual. On the contrary, there is ample evidence to believe that the brightest of our students are among the best in the world. National law schools that compete in the International Moot Court Competition, an annual event in Washington that attracts more than 500 schools from 80 countries, consistently finish in the top ranks. In 2009, Pelita Harapan University ranked 13th, and the University of Indonesia finished 28th. Similarly, Indonesians who compete in the Physics Olympics and other international competitions do very well.
If the problem is neither funding nor the ability to compete, then what is it? I would suggest two reasons — infrastructure and preparation — both of which present the Ministry of Education with much-needed areas for improvement.
Infrastructure is the ability of our nation to identify talented students and to grant them opportunities to pursue a career path and compete for scholarships. Singapore is one country that does this particularly well — so well that it is able to spot talent not only within its own borders, but in neighboring school systems also. Indonesian and Indian students with great academic potential — as evidenced by winning a Unesco award, for example — are immediately offered scholarships to the country’s top institutions.
With only four million people, this task is much easier for Singapore than it is for Indonesia. Nevertheless, the same idea applies here, just on a larger scale. The government must create a systematic program through which students with the right talent and character can be identified. The mechanism to spot talent must be decentralized to the local and regional level, and once identified, candidates should be aggregated at the national level where these students can compete with each other.
Funding 330 students (10 students from each of 33 provinces) at a per student cost of $20,000 per year amounts to an annual total cost of $6.6 million — less than 0.1 percent of the ministry’s annual budget. If matching programs are created in conjunction with universities and the private sector, perhaps twice the number of students could be funded for the same amount of money. Over 10 years, more than 3,000 top-flight foreign graduates would become part of our work force.
Secondly, preparation is needed. This can be broken down into long and short term. Long-term preparation refers to developing sophisticated skills that require a significant horizon to mature, such as English-language proficiency and the ability to express oneself in speech and writing. The only way to dramatically improve this on a national scale is to improve the entire public school system. In the near future, it is unlikely that our national school system will be able to teach English at the level that is expected at foreign universities, meaning students who are determined to study abroad will have to invest extra effort.
Furthermore, there should be resources and guidance for students on how to put together a strong application — this is the short-term aspect. Many students who are otherwise qualified fail because they don’t understand what is expected of them in an application. Unlike applying to local universities, applications to foreign schools require a plethora of documents, test scores, personal essays, recommendations and, in some cases, interviews. Those unfamiliar with the process can get lost in the jargon and maze of requirements.
In the long run, education in Indonesia should still be built on providing access to education at a mass level. Our domestic education agenda remains the key. Even a few hundred thousand foreign graduates cannot, without the support of an educated population, lift Indonesia to a sustainable level of social, political and economic development.
Nevertheless, we can greatly benefit from having a critical mass of foreign graduates who understand the complexities of the outside world, can help facilitate knowledge transfer and can bring Indonesia to the world and the world to Indonesia.
John Riady is editor at large of t he Jakarta Globe. He can be reached at [email protected].
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