Jakarta - Education experts questioned the implementation of democracy in Indonesia, while observing the difficulty of its application in developing compared to developed countries.
Professor Soedijarto, an education expert at Jakarta State University (UNJ), questioned how Indonesia could be named the third largest democratic country in the world, receive a democracy award in Bali recently, while at the same time many of its people live in poverty.
"Many Indonesians live in poverty, have to pay a lot for education and commit corruption ... is this what democracy is all about?" Soedijarto asked participants at a seminar Wednesday at the UNJ campus in Rawamangun, East Jakarta.
The seminar, titled "Educating the Changing Indonesian Community and People", was organized by the UNJ Department of Social Science, in cooperation with the Institute of Sathya Sai Education and a local NGO, Democracy Education Association.
Participants at the seminar included education figures, lecturers, teachers and students.
Soedijarto told participants democracy was aimed at creating a good society, and in Indonesia the implementation of the idea was still in transition.
However, he added, implementing democracy in developing countries like Indonesia, may not be as easy as in developed nations.
Soedijarto quoted the book On Democracy, by Robert Dahl of Yale University, which states that up to 70 countries had failed in implementing the idea of democracy, and even the United States and Britain spent hundreds of years developing their own stable democracies.
Another education expert from UNJ, Professor Ismail Arianto, said democracy, human rights and welfare are currently trendy issues in Indonesia.
He reminded the audience these issues were not enough to develop the country, and emphasized the need to rekindle nationalism, which he said had been somewhat forgotten since the struggle for independence ended.
A high-school civic education teacher from Bogor, Erlinda, told the seminar that students needed good role models in government officials and legislators to learn about democracy, but what they saw in the media was mostly the misconduct of those who should be setting better examples.
Another teacher, Retno Listyarti, discussed the problems of educating students about democracy. The poor quality of teachers and confusing education policy has caused students to lose focus on important civic issues.
Keynote speaker at the seminar, Dr. Art-Ong Jumsai, from The Institute of Sathya Sai Education in Thailand, emphasized the need for teachers to set a good example for students in order to teach them about democracy.
Art-Ong Jumsai is the cousin of Thailand`s king, a former NASA scientist and a world-renowned educator and humanitarian.
"Good teaching requires good examples. Teachers should not teach from the mouth, but from the heart, so their teachings will enter children`s hearts," he said.
Source: www.thejakartapost.com (30 November 2007)
