Source/Credit: The Jakarta Post
By TJP | National | June 17, 2011
Despite being a multicultural country, Indonesia has not integrated multiculturalism studies in the education system, such as in senior high school civic education classes, a failure that is hampering efforts to tackle radicalism among youths, a study shows.
The research, conducted in February by the Jakarta’s Teachers Forum (FMGJ), Paramadina University’s Institute for Education Reform (IER), and Tifa Foundation, an NGO focusing on civil society, analyzed a number of textbooks from different publishers used in senior high schools, and surveyed 23 civic teachers in Jakarta and Tangerang.
Retno Listyarini, a teacher who was one of the researchers, said that none of the 21 civic books analyzed, which came from nine publishers, mentioned multiculturalism.
“We also did not find any mention of the word ‘multiculturalism’ in the civic curriculum guidelines. However, we found them in the sociology curriculum, which focuses more on describing society,” Retno said at a seminar on multiculturalism perspectives and learning methods at the National Education Ministry recently.
Retno said the books did not include specific multiculturalism guidelines.
“Consequently, our civic teachers, who rely heavily on the textbooks, do not discuss multiculturalism in class,” Retno said, adding that multiculturalism education could improve morals, problem solving and reduce prejudice.
The survey report also showed that in the books, multiculturalism could be included in other themes, such as human rights and equality, Indonesia’s culture of democracy, international law and the justice system.
“In an international court topic for example, there are only cases such as genocide in Rwanda. However, the topic includes general knowledge on human rights; like the right to live, without mentioning that we have to be able to acknowledge differences,” Retno said.
The researchers found that the civic teachers’ knowledge on multiculturalism was limited to concepts, and did not cover daily application.
It said that the teachers thought that social and ethnic differences were not the source of recent conflicts. Retno said the teachers could not relate differences of religion and ethnicity to factual events like attacks on churches in Temanggung, violence against Ahmadiyah followers and the stabbing of a priest in Bekasi, which happened not long before the survey was conducted.
“The teachers are unable to relate the learning process with new realities threatening multiculturalism in Indonesia. It’s necessary to bring those realities closer to our students,” Retno said.
The absence of multiculturalism in the textbooks and the learning process, she said, was an indication of why radicalism was accepted among youths.
Utomo Dananjaya, the director of IER, the institute supporting the research, said that civic educators had to find more creative ways to teach civil studies.
He said during the New Order era, civic learning was included in the education on guidelines for and the practice of Pancasila (P4), where teachers used to make students memorize the five principles of
Pancasila.
“Some 20 or 30 years later, the result of that kind of civic education is Gayus,” Utomo said, referring to rogue former tax officer Gayus H. Tambunan.
A survey on students by the Institute of Islam and Peace Studies recently found that almost half of the respondents, of which there were about 1,000, said they would take part in violent action to defend morals and religion.
Another survey by the Indonesia Survey Institute in cooperation with German cultural center Goethe Institute and Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty, however, found that although religiously conservative, most young respondents agreed to democratic values like freedom of speech, opposition parties and female leadership. (rcf)
Read original post here: Base diversity in reality: Survey
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