Solutions to our fiscal problems

By Helmi Arman, Analyst

Capital account pressures could restrain the effectiveness of fiscal policy in mitigating the economic downturn next year. Is there a way out?

In recent months, Indonesia’s balance of payments has become an increasingly important point of analysis for economists.

The current account — the difference between exports and imports of goods and services, along with the net amount of income and remittance flows — has been in the spotlight as there was a current account deficit equivalent to 1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) during the second quarter of this year.

This caused alarm in the markets and some economists began to predict that Indonesia’s long-standing current account surplus, which has been sustained for nearly 10 years, would fall into negative territory for the first time in 2008, with potential to become more negative in subsequent years.

Many became concerned since current account deficits tend to put downward pressure on the currency.

For our part, we were never really convinced that the current account would go deep into the red. The deficit in the second quarter appeared temporary, in relation to oil prices which were then at an all-time high. Surging oil prices worsened Indonesia’s oil trade deficit, pushed up freight costs and boosted the repatriation of income from foreign oil companies.

Fortunately our view appears to be vindicated somewhat by the latest balance of payments data published by Bank Indonesia, which showed Indonesia’s current account deficit shrinking by half in the third quarter; i.e. as oil prices began to decline.

Going forward, the full-year current account surplus might even widen in 2009 instead of shrinking. Judging from past experience, imports tend to fall severely as exports drop and economic growth contracts. Next year should be no exception, especially given the severe weakening of the rupiah.

Therefore in our view, it’s not the current account balance that should be in the spotlight; it is the capital account (or “financial account” in modern day economic jargon).

The capital account faces numerous challenges next year. For example the global commodity price bubble had been a catalyst for foreign direct investment into the plantation and mining sectors for years. Now that the bubble has burst, the flow of resource-based direct investment inflows could also grind to a halt.

Secondly with the ongoing global credit crunch, there is considerable uncertainty surrounding the prospect of portfolio or short-term investment inflows — which the government depends upon to finance its budget shortfall.

(Note that the main buyers of Indonesian government bonds over the past years have largely been foreign investors).

As a result, despite the abrupt improvement in bond market sentiment over the past week, there is still considerable doubt concerning the effectiveness of fiscal policy to act as a buffer against next year’s forthcoming economic downturn.

The government appears to realize this and has been engaged in efforts to secure alternative funding sources for next year’s budget deficit, which is planned at around 1 percent of GDP.

Officials boast confidence that funding from foreign governments and international organizations would be available if needed, by an amount of US$5 billion, which is roughly equal to the targeted amount for net bond issuances needed next year.

However we should be cautious that even $5 billion may not be enough to cover the whole nine yards. In these turbulent times, what one should focus on is the gross — as opposed to net — amount of needed financing.

Nearly $4 billion worth of bonds mature next year and it is not safe to say that all of this would be reinvested back into the bond market, especially if domestic interbank money markets remain dormant and banks prefer to hold vast amounts of liquidity.

If this turns out to be the case, then the choices at hand fall down to two. The government can run a lower than planned budget deficit — which means that fiscal policy would be pro-cyclical instead of countercyclical. Or it can take a simpler way out and ask the central bank to monetize the budget deficit — by way of purchasing government bonds.

The latter option would of course be controversial. The term monetizing or “printing money” is traditionally considered taboo by the markets, since it is associated with complications such as hyperinflation.

But monetizing, at least under a temporary time-frame, does seem like a viable alternative nowadays. It is not like Indonesia is running double-digit fiscal deficits as in Zimbabwe. One percent of GDP is still considered benign from a fiscal sustainability standpoint, even by the most conservative standards.

Furthermore the impact of money base expansion on the broader money supply and inflation probably would not be proportionate, given that private sector credit growth is bound to be slow and falling commodity prices have suppressed the momentum on consumer prices.

Finally even the most advanced economies in the world have been engaged in some form of “printing” (money) in recent months; i.e. expanding their monetary base by opening up various facilities. It does seem that everybody else is doing it. So why can’t we?

The author is currently an economist at Bank Danamon Indonesia [The Jakarta Post]

Responsible motorcycle business

The motorcycle business continues booming in Indonesia, with producers like Honda, Suzuki and Yamaha aggressively promoting their products by showing off their technological advances and the affordability of their prices.

Buyers are lured with easy credit schemes. The government, including the Jakarta city government, is happy because the motorcycle boom provides lucrative revenues.

But do we ever stop to think that there is a heavy price we must pay for the flourishing motorbike market?

The public, including the riders, take most of the cost. If there is no action to address transportation problems, the growth in the number of motorcycles will be unstoppable. As long as the City does not have adequate public transportation systems, like the proposed mass rapid transportation system (MRT), this gloomy picture will continue, if not worsen.

The Jakarta City police say the number of motorcycles has reached 3.5 millions out of the total 5.7 million vehicles in the capital. This is a 300 percent increase in the number of motorbikes during the last four years.

According to data issued by the city police, 88 percent of more than 3,500 traffic accidents across the capital – killing some 720 people and wounding more than 4,000 — involved motorcyclists, last year alone.

Minivan Mikrolets and medium-size Metromini bus drivers and owners complain they are facing extinction because of their passengers moving to motorcycles.

Look at the TV or print media advertisements. In their forceful advertisements, motorcycle producers rarely educate their customers on how to ride safely, or how to abide by traffic regulations. They promote speed, quality and the stylish mode of their products.

But how about safe driving? Perhaps the motorcycle producers have done more than we realize to educate riders and to help government in reducing traffic accidents. Perhaps they keep a low profile so only relatively few people know about their corporate social responsibility programs.

We do appreciate the strong presence of the vehicle industry because it generates major job opportunities, directly or indirectly. The taxes it pays to government are also an important source of revenue. We just want to remind the industry that it would be to the common good if it could play a greater role in sharing the burden of preventing, or mitigating, the negative impacts of vehicles on the streets.

We also owe a debt to motorcycle owners, because every year they pay their vehicle tax. With their vehicles they can access lower cost transportation for their daily lives. However, the behavior of many motorists on the street is worrying. This is especially so because the road capacity of Jakarta can’t accommodate the rising number of vehicles.

In a city with seriously chaotic traffic conditions like Jakarta, are the growing number of motorcycles part of the solution or part of the problem? The answer is both, depending on who answers the question and how we see transportation issues.

For many urban workers, motorcycles are part of the solution because with them they can cut their transportation costs, which is urgent following the fuel price increases. But the expansion of the motorcycle fleet has sparked new problems for urban traffic in general, including an increase in accidents, worsening traffic congestion and increased traffic violations.

The Jakarta city administration has considered various solutions to address this problem, including providing motorcycles with special lanes or by reinforcing policies introduced last year, prohibiting motorcycles from entering certain roads.

We endorse any plans to address the problems arising from the motorcycle boom. However, any solutions should comprehensively address the whole transportation problem in the capital.

Unfortunately, the growing popularity of motorcycles is leading to new problems.

The data on traffic accidents shows they have reached an alarming level. Motorcyclists are considered to be the most reckless road users. This is partly because there is no special training for driving motorcycles.

Meanwhile, driving licenses are easily obtained without taking into account the riding skills of the applicants. Many unlicensed riders, including under age children, are often seen driving motorcycles on the streets. Such practices not only endanger motorcyclists themselves, but also other road users.

The most important solution is that the city has to go ahead with its plans to improve public transportation services and provide alternatives to the general public. This is the only permanent solution to the terrible traffic problems in Jakarta.

Meanwhile, motorcycle producers, who have gained windfall profits from a booming market, need to bear in mind their moral and social responsibilities to the public good and help share the burden of resolving transport problems.

Source : The Jakarta Post

Schoolbooks on the Web

From August this year, school textbooks will be available for students through the Internet. This is a commendable idea.

When students can download their textbooks from one of the following Web addresses: http://bse.depdiknas.go.id , www.depdiknas.go.id , www.pusbuk.or.id and www.sibi.or.id, this is a sign of progress.

Everyone agrees that the National Education Ministry is facing an uphill battle to achieve its objectives. To create equal opportunities for school students in the largest archipelagic country in the world represents an enormous challenge. Students will soon be able to download 49 textbooks, at least in theory. The number will soon be increased to around 300.

The book shortage is only one of the problems confronting national education. The same goes for teachers and even school buildings.

More than 40 years ago we used to send teachers to work in Malaysia. Now, there are primary schools in remote regions with only one teacher. This is not encouraging for a country whose quality of education was once an example to its neighbors.

The ministry’s move is both visionary and a breakthrough. In the past publishing textbooks for schools, a lucrative industry when there are more than 40 million school students, was often marred by corruption, which sent book prices soaring and made the cost of education more expensive.

With only one year of shelf life for many educational books, parents found it hard financially to buy new books for each of their children, every year.

Now the government has extended the shelf life of textbooks to five years and has put them in digital form on the Internet.

The problem, more than two years after its introduction, is that students are still having problems downloading the textbooks, especially those living off the island of Java.

Lack of access to Internet connections — a communications infrastructure problem — is one reason. This may be linked to a limited development budget in some regions.

In Central Kalimantan, some students have to travel 125 kilometers to find the nearest Internet cafe, as reported by Kompas last week.

Or, if there is a connection, it takes ages to download big documents. One teacher said one book can contain more than 500 megabytes of data. This has prompted teachers to propose to the ministry that it should be possible to download books chapter by chapter.

It is sad that such a good idea should be held back by such obstacles. Our information technology connection quality is in a sorry state compared to Singapore, Malaysia or Thailand.

The Singapore government has a plan to wire the whole island in the near future.

In India, farmers make use of the Internet to check everything from agricultural prices, to the weather and market trends.

Or we can look south to Australia where, remote learning (by radio) was introduced successfully in the 1970s, even before the Internet age. The country has much in common with Indonesia, as far as vast distances and remote areas are concerned.

This shows that there are ample examples of good practice around us.

Part of the problem in Indonesia lies in the monopoly-like practices of telecommunications companies. If they could open up, things would definitely be better.

We can get around poor infrastructure, thanks to technological innovation. Some big private companies are doing just that. They have state-of-the-art IT because the technology is there.

It is now possible to go virtual without using wires.

This is one possibility that the ministry can explore.

Another one, which could lower costs, is to insert textbook data into tiny memory chips that cost only US$8 (about Rp 80,000) each.

The memory chips, in turn could be downloaded by students onto CDs, which will be cheaper still. All of this can be done without Internet connections.

Or the ministry can cooperate with cellphone companies. Each school student or teacher with a cellphone could get a free memory chip. Today, the country has more than 80 million cellphone users.

This would go well with the One Laptop For Every Child concept that will soon be coming to Indonesia. (The Jakarta Post)

The National Police: Between idealism and reality

By Imanuddin Razak

The recent spate of national headlines on major economic, social and political events may have led us, the Indonesian people, to forget that the National Police (Polri) celebrates its 62nd anniversary today.

We are so preoccupied with daily life that we may see symbolic events, such as the annual police anniversary, as pure ritual, unless the police force can offer “above-average” achievements to mark the event.

It is interesting to note the results of a recent poll by Kompas daily, that questioned the professionalism of the police force, which is only one year younger than the republic itself.

The poll found that 50.6 percent of 844 respondents questioned said the image of the police was bad, while 46.7 percent said to the contrary.

Concerning the way the police dealt with student protesters, the response was more negative, with 61.3 percent saying the police were unprofessional, while only 37.0 percent thought the opposite.

Respondents’ comments on police handling of corruption and human rights violations and of cases allegedly involving state, military and police officials were worse; respectively 74.8 percent, 74.3 percent and 76.9 percent said they were dissatisfied with police performance.

Poll results cannot give the complete picture on police performance, still, the results could help promote the commitment to professionalism that the police made after their separation from the Indonesian Military in 2000.

Results reflect the poor image of the police, especially on their slow response to the recent violence of the Islam Defenders Front against the peaceful protest of the National Alliance for the Freedom of Faith and Religion. The investigation into the September 2004 murder of rights activist Munir Said Thalib was also considered slow moving.

The poor performance list was extended by the chronic corrupt practices of police on the street and during the processing of official documents in police stations. The global graft watchdog, Transparency International, said in its 2007 report that of the 14 government and public institutions surveyed, the Indonesian police was the most corrupt public institution in the country.

However, it would not be fair to say the police did not achieve anything to mark their 2008 anniversary.

Despite shortcomings, the police had the courage to name and arrest the former deputy chief of the State Intelligence Agency Maj. Gen. (ret.) Muchdi Purwopranjono after nearly four years of investigation and revelations by witnesses during the court proceedings of the two defendants, former Garuda Indonesia pilot Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto and former Garuda president Indra Setiawan.

Police willingness to put their own house in order was also confirmed by the high-profile arrest and prosecution of former police chief Gen. (ret.) Rusdihardjo earlier this year over alleged corruption during his tenure as Indonesian Ambassador to Malaysia.

Some critics, including those within the police, have said that a huge overhaul would be needed to make it the ideal, professional institution that every Indonesian dreams of. But this should not prevent the force from improving itself, albeit step by step.

There is still a huge gap between public expectations and reality. But as long as the police force remains committed to improving its performance and professionalism, we can still hope to expect more from it in the future.

Rome was not built in a day and excellence can only come from continuous improvement. Happy 62nd anniversary, Indonesian Police. [The Jakarta Post]

Fuel price hike: Time to address wider energy management options

By Hanan Nugroho

The energy and mineral resources minister was recently blamed for his failure to meet domestic oil production targets. The failure, with a growing demands on fuel supplies, was believed to have increased Indonesia’s oil imports. Combined with skyrocketing oil prices, this failure also added to the government’s oil subsidy bill.

The increased price of fuels, which comes alongside a shortage of energy supplies, resulted in protests around the country.

Was this simply a problem with domestic oil production?

It is not that our supply shortage has increased the burden of energy subsidies, nor that our energy security is getting worse. It is not just oil production levels, but a wider sphere of energy management options which need to be addressed.

Indonesian oil production has been decreasing gradually from 1,434 barrels per day (bpd) in 1995 to 833 bpd in 2007 (OPEC statistics). This trend actually began in 1977, when Indonesia produced a total 1,686 bpd.

Many believed Indonesia’s oil, which was first exploited in 1893, had achieved its “Hubert production peak” by that year, 1977.

This means that without any extraordinary efforts employing advanced recovery technologies, deep sea exploitation or exploration of “new oils” (heavy oil, gas to liquid, coal to liquid, etc) — which would all require huge investment and take time to deliver — the country’s oil production will never return to its 1977 level.

Unfortunately, the country is far from the luxury of having such investments and technology resources, in addition to a strong political will needed to produce more oil.

Nevertheless, there is the potential that more oil fields could still be found in Indonesia, while finding new oil reserves is getting tougher elsewhere. Indonesia’s past and present oil production comes from just 16 sediment basins among 60. Only 38 of these basins have been drilled so far, resulting in 23 basins discovered with oil. The remaining 22 basins have not yet been explored.

However, when it comes to producing more oil, the problems are not just below ground. It is not just geological, but political and economic obstacles which have prevented oil production from increasing, particularly over the past decade.

Regulatory frameworks have changed substantially and the decentralization euphoria has confused investors. Despite the new areas that have remained on offer from the government, uncertainties have led to a decrease in exploration (seismic, exploration drilling, discoveries, etc) and production activity.

Moreover, during a period when oil prices have been on an upward path for more than six years (we are currently experiencing the longest period of sustained increase in world oil prices), many other oil producing nations have offered better terms and conditions, meaning oil companies have paid less attention to oil production in Indonesia.

Managing domestic demand for oil, rather than trying to increase production, now seems more like a sensible option. Even though our energy consumption per capita is low, the potential for energy conservation in this country is comparatively large, ranging from 15-30 percent according to different studies.

Reducing domestic fuel consumption by just 10 percent — which could be achieved through better management of the transport sector — would “produce” the equivalent of around 150,000 bpd. In terms of crude production, an equivalent figure would require massive investment.

Energy conservation is a pillar of national energy management, but we often forget about this pillar when oil prices were low.

The application of energy conservation technologies could be widespread; energy-saving light bulbs in households, energy efficient buildings, energy efficient engines in manufacturers, using a mass rapid transit system rather than depending on passenger cars, etc. Compared to production, a lot of energy conservation approaches can be implemented with lesser or with no costs at all.

However, when it comes to building a culture of energy conservation, we need more than just knowledge of energy conservation technologies — we also need an institution which leads and manages those conservation activities.

The success story of the Japanese Center for Energy Conservation is a good example. The center promotes conservation as a “smart lifestyle”, trains energy managers (under the Japanese Energy Conservation law every large company must employ staff in this area), manages an energy efficiency labeling system, develops energy efficient technology, provides consultation, audits energy use and offers credit for energy efficient equipment.

The Energy Conservation law mandates the government to provide fiscal incentives for auditing business energy consumption and energy saving equipment, promoting the development of ESCO (Energy Service Company), and campaigning for energy conservation. As a result, since the establishment of the Center 3 decades ago, Japan is now recognized as the world’s most energy efficient country.

Institutions dealing with energy conservation in Indonesia are still weak. National energy management puts heavy emphasis on supply and production, but largely ignores the question of how to consume energy wisely.

Clearly, the publication of a Presidential Instruction (for example Number 10, 2005 on Energy Saving) is not enough to meet the challenges of conserving energy in this country, where energy consumption is still widely regarded as outside the responsibility of any government institution.

The establishment of an Energy Conservation Center which could serve as leader and coordinator of energy conservation activities among different consuming sectors (industry, transportation, households, buildings, etc) would potentially improve our non-productive energy consumption habits.

In the procurement of oil, a greater degree of transparency and efficiency might also be promoted, especially by the current monopolist. So far, it is not clear to the public how much we spend on importing crude oil and oil products, or refining and distributing oil in the domestic market.

Where does the oil come from, who organizes the procurement, and are we efficient enough compared to others? Answering these questions and analyzing the results could improve our oil procurement system, a factor adding to the incredible oil subsidy.

The writer is a lecturer in energy and natural gas economics for the Graduate Program in Natural Gas Technology and Management, University of Indonesia. He can be reached at hanan_nugroho@yahoo.com. [The Jakarta Post]

Commentary: Indonesia, a nation in a constant state of denial

By Endy M. Bayuni

Few people saw the irony when President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono this month told giant oil companies operating in Indonesia “to share the pain” and divide some of their recent windfall profits with the country, which has been struggling with soaring world oil prices.

With prices in world markets reaching US$130 a barrel and counting, it is easy to assume that these foreign companies that operate most of Indonesia’s big oil fields are flush with unexpectedly huge profits. One does not need to be a math genius to see just how much money is being reaped if the average production cost for extracting a barrel of oil in Indonesia, according to one industry estimate, is at between $6 and $7 a barrel.

What the President did not say, and what the media reporting on his meeting with foreign oil executives failed to point out, is that it is not the oil companies alone that are reaping huge profits from the dramatic increase in oil prices from $80 a barrel just a year ago.

With an average 85:15 split on oil produced in Indonesia in favor of the government, the biggest beneficiary of the present situation in world oil markets is our own government. One estimate puts the government’s daily share of the Indonesian oil output at around 600,000 barrels a day, after paying the oil contractors their share of the profit and recoverable production costs.

While President Yudhoyono was within his rights in asking the oil companies to share the burden of the country in dealing with higher oil prices, the unanswered question is what his government has done with its own share of the oil windfall, which is large by any measure.

The answer is simple: they have been squandering it, or more precisely, they have been burning the oil money like there is no tomorrow. Most if not all of the oil money, even after last month’s 30 percent average increase in gasoline prices, has gone up in smoke, in the form of subsidies on gasoline prices.

The chief beneficiary remains the wealthy middle class, people who drive their own cars and people who light up their houses as much as they can. They get the lion’s share of the money. The poorest of the poor only now are getting some of that money after the government introduced a direct cash assistance program to help cushion them from the increase in gasoline prices. The smugglers, the hoarders and the thieves who cash in on the huge margin between domestic and international prices are also on the take, but theirs is another story.

The rest of us get a little share of the oil windfall here and there.

With oil prices unlikely to ease in the near future (some even now predict they will go past the $200 a barrel mark by the end of this year), the government is still looking at paying around Rp 200 trillion ($22 billion) in fuel subsidies for the 2008 fiscal year.

It is safe to assume that there won’t be any further increases in gasoline prices, no matter what happens to prices in world oil markets, given that the country (or rather President Yudhoyono) is facing an election year in 2009. Going by his administration’s thinking, the government is prepared to sacrifice other spending, including on education, health and defense, as well as on badly needed economic infrastructure, to keep gasoline prices at their present levels.

In fact public sentiment won’t have it any other way. Just look at the student demonstrations, statements from politicians of all colors as well as editorials and press commentaries. Everyone seems to agree that Indonesia cannot afford to increase domestic fuel prices again.

While we are admittedly flush with oil money, we seem to be burning it as fast as possible, which explains why we never seem to see the money in the first place.

What the nation seems to have forgotten completely (or some of us conveniently choose to forget) is that technically, every drop of oil we produce is actually burned here, and much more. Indonesia has been a net oil importer (meaning that we import more than we export) for some years now thanks to a combination of rising domestic production and declining output.

Yet, we have continued to behave like it was still the 1970s, when we were still exporting a reasonable amount of crude oil, so much so that we were an important member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and even at times chaired the oil cartel. The fact that we remain a member of OPEC today (the government is only considering quitting the organization) actually speaks volumes of our ambivalent attitude toward the current state of affairs when it comes to soaring oil prices.

This is a nation that seems to be in a constant state of denial; a nation that continues to live in its past while at the same time squandering its future; a nation that seems unwilling to confront the truth and unwilling to change to the new realities.

As we gear up for a presidential election next year, no one in the political elite is heard to be advocating another increase in gasoline prices. Not the politicians, not the bureaucracy, not the academics, not the media, not the NGOs and not the students.

The question is not so much how long can we keep this game up, as how high must oil prices go before we wake up to reality. Is it $150 a barrel, $200 a barrel? I hesitate to guess. (The Jakarta Post)

Wanted: Humane education

Ing ngarso sung tulodo
Ing madyo mangun karso
Tut wuri handayani
(In front, giving example
In the middle, building work
In the back, giving support)

These three Javanese sentences are from Raden Mas Soewardi Soerjaningrat, who later changed his name to Ki Hadjar Dewantara, and whose birthday, May 2, 1889, we celebrate as National Education Day.

Before stepping into education, Ki Hadjar Dewantara was active in politics through organizations including Boedi Oetomo, whose establishment on May 20, 1908, we celebrate as National Awakening Day.

Because of his writings in 1913, critical of the Dutch ruler, he was exiled to Bangka Island, and later to the Netherlands. Upon his return, he established the educational institution Tamansiswa on July 3, 1922, which would later be regarded as the foundation of the national education system.

As we celebrate National Education Day today, it is worth reflecting once again on the history of our education and its development, and to see what we can do to “raise the intellectual capacity of the nation”, as stipulated in the preamble to the Constitution.

Looking at the figures, we would be proud to see the massive improvements made from the time of Ki Hadjar Dewantara, when education was the realm of the chosen few, to our present time, when most of the nation has access to education.

The biggest improvement of all was recorded during the New Order administration under president Soeharto, who pursued equality in education policies.

Soeharto built hundreds of thousands of schools to improve access to education and later launched the mandatory basic education for all. The result was an improved national adult literacy rate of over 90 percent.

However, Soeharto was only interested in numbers, in quantity, and he did less in improving the quality of education. Worse yet, schools and teachers during this time were just an extension of the New Order’s political puppeteers, and the students were at the receiving end of their machinations.

Education under Soeharto, as it turned out, was vastly different from Ki Hadjar Dewantara’s teachings, whose essence was character building.

During the reform movement that followed Soeharto’s downfall, political leaders tried to change the education system by making it more humane and also, unfortunately, more religious.

The first thing they did was to amend the Constitution by inserting a number of stipulations, including one on mandatory basic education, another requiring 20 percent of the budget for education and another mentioning the importance of science and technology.

The amendment also included the aim of national education, i.e. “enhancing religious and pious feelings as well as moral excellence with a view to raising the intellectual capacity of the nation.”

And the result of this amendment is that the state is obliged to provide religious education for all students, something we find unnecessary.

Ten years after reformasi, our state of education has not moved much, despite the soaring costs. On many issues, it has remained the same or gotten worse.

True, Indonesia lies at the higher end of the list for East Asia in terms of Education for All Development Index, published by UNESCO, ranking above Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines, and below South Korea and China.

True, some of our best students have won international awards, including in the recent Asian Physics Olympiad. But truth be told, many of those award-winning students come from the elite schools.

The majority of our students still struggle with the mounting burden of school subjects, as our education system continues to treat them like lifeless objects.

Also, the national examination, introduced recently as the main requirement for students to graduate from secondary and high schools, has became an additional burden for many students and parents alike. For them, it’s a nightmare.

The national exams, however, have nothing to do with character building or instilling moral integrity. On the contrary, they encourage cheating among students, and even teachers, and corruption at the very highest levels, by leaking the test papers.

All in all, despite the improving situation and curriculum, our education system still doesn’t produce humane students with strong characters, but rather robot-like students.

Once again, we’ve failed to uphold the philosophical teachings of Ki Hadjar Dewantara, which puts students at the center, as the focus of the teaching-learning process.

Teachers in front should lead through examples, in the middle should work together with students, and in the back provide support.

It’s time now for us to move toward a more humane education, one that treats students as human beings, builds their character and, most of all, raises the intellectual capacity of the nation. (The Jakarta Post)