Paradox in Our Education Systems

A great change in computer or mobile technology 'forces' a fundamental change to the way educational institutions work. If in 2003, we could conduct video conferencing with full screen, 'full motion', through everyone's desktop using the internet for free, then direct face-to-face communication would be 'more dazzling'. If people want to communicate face-to-face, then families are simply 'silent' at home, no need to leave the house. They just need to open their computer or phone and do face-to-face with the medium of their computer screen or telephone.

John Hain from Pixabay

They communicate in their language. People who live in one country convey messages through the use of their mother tongue or community (national language), while people who live at the other end of the country receive messages in their mother tongue or community (national) as well. Their 'face-to-face' conversations via computer screens or cell phones do not require the use of a foreign language other than their national language, but messages from these conversations can be received in the language of the other person.

Imagine, if these changes occur quickly, what will happen to the airline business? What will happen to the education 'business'? What will happen to the working relations of government bureaucratic institutions? What will happen to the way educational institutions work? What will happen to individual skill changes? What will happen to the mission of educational institutions?

One thing that may hit our society's life is the feeling that people who have 'mastered a foreign language' will feel 'incompetent' because that language is no longer needed. People can communicate and understand each other, without having to master a foreign language or someone else's language. Each person can communicate using his mother tongue, without the obstacle that one understands it or not. Because between the languages that have been translated instantly and can be understood by the interlocutor in their mother tongue or national language. Thus, there could be a lot of changes, because 'incompetent' must be returned to ordinary feelings.

Perhaps, we should stop for a moment from the frenzied life of the debate over the administration of education which is full of subterfuge. It's good to take a little time, to pay attention to future changing trends. With that, we can then work with the future in mind. We must take more objective care to determine and formulate how our educational institutions will function in the future as described above. Thus, we can build educational policy stages that anticipate our success or failure in facing the future.

So far, our attention to the future setting is less developed. We are working actively, formulating our policies, just to anticipate the life practices experienced by today's society. We often make our educational policies reactive to current issues which often have little to do with the future or the past. As a result, our political education policy paradigm is still in the old paradigm. Our educational political policies rarely refer to and give responsibility for future developments. We need a new paradigm in our political education policy that gives or opens new inspiration and vision. Let's say it is a 'dream and aspiration' for the future of our society so that we can carry that dream in the power of realizing the quality of Indonesian people that we aspire to. 'if we do not dream, we have no power to act'. The 'dream', it seems, is less prominent in the practice of our education politics in Indonesia. We prefer and like to dwell on the 'old things', circling them alone. Maybe we agree more with the adage 'if you fail to plan, you plan to fail'.

Can we 'stop' the change in learning patterns that are a consequence of the 'instant international translation' as described above? The teaching and learning process in the classroom becomes an obsolete part. Face-to-face meetings between teachers and students as is currently being carried out in our education administration will experience an aging process if we don't say it is obsolete. The relationship between teaching staff and students is enough to do from home, even though the interaction occurs between foreign teachers who teach our students in Indonesia. They can dialogue, discuss and discuss various scientific topics face-to-face, using their respective languages, being accepted, understood, and understood in their respective languages.

Our educational institutions will undergo a spectacular change. The arrangement of institutional institutions will also undergo changes, where anyone can be registered as a student or student of a foreign school, without having to go abroad. If so, what is the function and position of our educational institutions in almost all types and levels of education? Competition in the provision of education is no longer real, concrete. However, the competition for education tends to be 'virtual'. Every educational institution can directly intervene in the implementation of education in other countries, without being bothered by various bureaucracies and rigid government regulations. Meanwhile, everyone can access educational institutions with cheap, quality, and excellent service. People simply follow the teaching and learning process or lectures from home, without having to be physically present in class, in meeting rooms.

Our educational institutions will undergo a spectacular change. The arrangement of institutional institutions will also undergo changes, where anyone can be registered as a student or student of a foreign school, without having to go abroad. If so, what is the function and position of our educational institutions in almost all types and levels of education? Competition in the provision of education is no longer real, concrete. However, the competition for education tends to be 'virtual'. Every educational institution can directly intervene in the implementation of education in other countries, without being bothered by various bureaucracies and rigid government regulations. Meanwhile, everyone can access educational institutions with cheap, quality, and excellent service. People simply follow the teaching and learning process or lectures from home, without having to be physically present in class, in meeting rooms.

We are faced with 'e-education', which does not require various administrative matters. We will forget about academic assessments which are then converted to administrative assessments as we often see in our educational practice. We don't need all those things anymore. What is needed is to prepare a minimal infrastructure that can be accessed by every community so that they can learn, discuss, have a dialogue using modern technology such as computers, mobile phones, and so on. Assessment of the quality of education is carried out with cross-references, even a 'virtual society which will determine whether someone who follows an educational process will be declared passed or not passed, has qualifications, or does not have qualifications. Recognition of an individual's competence is no longer stated by administrative authorities.

So, how should we respond to future changes? Have our education policies so far taken into account the implementation of 'e-education' education as above? Could it be that we need a new regulation, which is completely different from the education regulation we are familiar with? What are the significant impacts of lecturer and teacher certification programs, for example? Is such a thing still necessary for the future? To what extent can such policies be enforced? And to what extent can we maintain such a policy, if the future we face negates the need for such administrative policies? Is the national exam still needed, if the assessment of the quality of educational outcomes is carried out by a 'virtual society’?

There are many more problematic questions that we can ask any of our political education policies in the country. The example of 'future setting change' described in this article is one of the important 'claims' against our national education policy, which often seems less anticipatory towards the future. Maybe our education policy authorities need a short 'pause' to start mapping out the changes that are taking place in society. After that, he began to fix the focus of the education policy so that it was in line with the demands of the aspirations of the people and the changing times. That is one of the paradoxes in our education policy.