The Purpose of Adult Education in the Context of Indonesia

My paper in ADTED 460 - Penn State World Campus (2011)

 The Purpose of Adult Education in the Context of Indonesia

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Creating Purposes that Serve the Purpose of the Nation

Antonius Tanan

Abstract

The purpose of Ministry of Education in Indonesia is to support the purpose of the Nation: to achieve a nation with justice and welfare; therefore, the main purpose of adult education in Indonesia is to educate and train the adult to be able to respect others and do justice and at the same time can participate in the economic development and pursue their happiness. There are three big themes of the adult education that cover these purposes; they are employability, entrepreneurship and enrichment.

The Purpose of Adult Education in the Context of Indonesia

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Creating Purposes that Serve the Purpose of the Nation

1. The Nation, its Dream & its Challenges

INDONESIA is a developing country in South East Asia. It has an area of about 1,922,570 square kilometers (742,308 square miles), with more than 240 million populations. There are over 580 languages and dialects (Java, Batak, Makassar, etc.) but only 13 have more than one million speakers. However, there is one national language as unifier, that is, Bahasa Indonesia.  About 90% of the population is Moslem and the rest are Christians, Roman Catholics, Hindus, Buddhists and other traditional and local beliefs. The country is a vast equatorial archipelago of 17,000 islands, extending over 5,150 kilometers (3,200 miles) from east to west. The largest islands are Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, and Papua.

From the economic performance aspect, this country, that declared its independence from the Dutch in 1945, has reached the GDP per capita of about US$ 3.100, comparatively very small to the US with about US$ 47.000.  In Indonesia the issue of public welfare is central because unemployment and poverty are obvious. The Preamble of the 1945 Constitution has mandated that the Government of the Republic of Indonesia to protect the whole nation and their entire native land to promote public welfare, to increase the intellectual life of the whole nation, and to take part in world peace keeping based on independence, everlasting peace, and social justice.

2. The Purpose of Adult Education

Spencer shares his idea that the purposes and functions of adult education can be viewed from two perspectives: individual/personal and social. In the case of Indonesia, in this era of struggling to fight poverty and unemployment, the social perspective is stronger than the individual one. Spencer also proposed that the outcomes of adult education could be either accommodative/adaptive or transformational. In the case of Indonesia, the idea of transformational is more important than mere accommodative/adaptive. It is how to transform our human capital to be able to achieve their welfare and leave poverty behind. The next question is how we should define the purpose of adult education that will meet the learning "needs" of adults? What should be the main considerations of the government in deciding what students should learn?

3.              Achieving the people welfare through adult education

In my opinion, employment is the main key to alleviate poverty; therefore, in the case of a developing country such as Indonesia, we have to have an adult education system that can empower our people to have a place in the economy. I have two main reasons. Firstly, as we all know, adults without employment are more closely related to poverty. Secondly, building up people welfare through employment will create a more fulfilling life than just a minimum welfare through national safety net program. It is clear for me that the vision of adult education in Indonesia should serve the people empowerment to enable them to exist in the employment market.

For the sake of employment itself, there are two main issues, they are: employability and entrepreneurship. Firstly, for employability, the Institute for Employment Studies (http://www.employment-studies.co.uk/pubs/summary.php?id=emplblty) comes up with a definition of employability as: “Employability is about having the capability to gain initial employment, maintain employment and obtain new employment if required”. By having employability as a standard, the adult education of Indonesia should offer the people not only academic contents but also “soft skill” such as communication and human relations skill.

Secondly is entrepreneurship. In a simple definition I want to define entrepreneurship as the ability to create jobs for themselves and others innovatively. It is not only about trading or small business, but also a demand for creative action. Peter Drucker stated: ”..not all small business owners are entrepreneurs” (Drucker, 1993, p-21)  and then he explained: “Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship. The act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth” (Drucker, 1993,p-30). In my view, beyond employability skill, entrepreneurship needs the skills of opportunity identification, innovation and calculated risk taking.  It demands a more complex training compare to employability training. I want to conclude that our government should create policies and programs to ensure that there is a curriculum in  adult educational program in Indonesia (formal, un-formal and informal) that will build employability and/or entrepreneurship.    

However, there are well-off people in my country.  They may need intellectual enrichment as it is also the right of the citizens. This is the reason why the government should also allow and even encourage learning programs for adult that will enrich the life of our people. Our people should have many opportunities to pursue their own happiness through education. In conclusion, the adult education in Indonesia should cover at least the purpose of employability, entrepreneurship and enrichment. I understand there will be questions from this conclusion. However, because of space limitation I can not extend the explanation.

 References

Drucker, Peter F; Innovation and Entrepreneurship; Harper Business, New York, 1993.

http://www.employment-studies.co.uk/pubs/summary.php?id=emplblty

Spencer, Bruce;The Purpose of Adult Education: A Short Introduction; Thompson Educational Publishing, Inc, 2nd edition, Toronto, 2006.