Policy and Curriculum Discourses
5.2. The Constructions of Subjects in National Policies
Seven national policies were analysed in Chapter Four, in order to examine how lecturers, students, ELT Method, and World Englishes, were constructed, as well as tensions among these discourses. There was high degree of intertextuality for national policies or documents. The
“cultures of Indonesia” were poisoned as agentic subject, a subject contributing to the shaping of HE. HE is based on national education kaidah (rules), morals, and ethics of science (Article 2 Point 2, RIG No 60, 1999) and also based on “Pancasila (State Ideology) and 1945 Constitution of RI which was, among others, inspired by religious values, Indonesian national culture33 and being alert on the demand of the changing Era” (Chapter 1, Article 1, The Constitution of Republic of Indonesia (RI) No 20, 2003).
33 Article 32 of the 1945 Constitution says (1) “the State memajukan [fosters] Indonesian national cultures among the global civilization by granting freedom to societies to maintain and develop their own cultural values” (2) “the State respects and maintains local languages as kekayaan [the rich components] of national cultures” (my own translation). With this definition, local cultures are parts of national cultures themselves. They are mutually constitutive.
113 In these documents, Higher Education (HE) in Indonesia was constructed as the means to
maintain religious values and national cultures, subject to the sovereign power of Pancasila (State Ideology) and the 1945 Constitution, and the means to disseminate science and technology through reasoning. Indonesian HE is positioned as a means to upgrade nation’s competitiveness and social welfare.
HE is designed to achieve:
The production of graduates who master the branch of science and technology to meet the national’s interest and to enhance the nation’s competitiveness;
The production of science and technology through research which is attentive to and implements humanity value so that it can benefit the nation as well as civilization’s progress and the welfare of human beings;
The implemented community practice which is based on penalaran [reasoning] and also kebenaran ilmiah [scientific truth] (Article 3) and research work beneficial to enhance the social welfare and to educate the life of the nation. (Article 5 CRI No 12, 2012)
Neoliberal key term includes innovative, independent, skilful were found in the Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia (CRI), No 12, 2012). As discussed in Chapter Two, Indonesia began to formally adopt neoliberal discourses in the President’s Regulation No 8, 2012, about Kerangka Kualifikasi National Indonesia (KKNI)/National Qualification Framework to “anticipate globalisation” and “free trade”. This Regulation constructed undergraduate alumni as
“technician” or “analyst” (Article 2.2.). This qualification framework resonates with the World Bank Report 2010 which requires Indonesian Higher Education to increase global competitiveness. Religious discourses sit in tension with these neoliberal discourses.
Lecturers and students have different subject positions in the national policy and curriculum documents. For example, the lecturer is constructed as a professional educator and scientist as seen in the following: “[the] lecturer is a professional educator and scientist with the primary task to transform, develop, and spread science, technology and arts through education, research and
114 community service”34 (Chapter 1 Article 1, The Constitution of Republic Indonesia No, 14, 2005 about Teacher and Lecturer). The lecturer was defined as pendidik, which comes for the word mendidik which literally means to educate. The word means not only to teach but to have a moral obligation to do so.
The diverse subject positions for lecturers imply a particular logic of reasons (Foucault, 1995;
Walshaw, 2007). For example, while the lecturer is granted academic freedom, they are still bound by university’s regulations. This can be seen from the following statements in The Regulation of Indonesian Government No 60, 1999, about Higher Education: “academic freedom and knowledge autonomy is given to the members of academic civity” (Article 17) and “the Senate of the university formulated the regulations for academic freedom” (Article 19). Believing in the Almighty God and having Pancasila (State Ideology) and 1945 Constitutions as worldviews are constituted as the first and second qualifications of becoming a lecturer (Article 104). These two qualifications suggest that they are paramount, compulsory, and unnegotiable, and they exclude atheist and other ideologies. Moreover, the lecturer is required to have “high morality and integrity” and to have a “big responsibility toward the future of the State and Nation” (Article 104, fourth and fifth qualifications). The lecturer was entangled in the function of National Education:
National education functions to develop capacity and shape watak (character) as well as dignified nation’s civilization as the way to educate the life of the nation, and aimed to develop peserta didik (students) to be a faithful human and bertakwa35 to the one Almighty God, having noble morality, healthy, having knowledge, competence, creative, mandiri (autonomous) and become democratic and responsible citizen. (Chapter 2 Article 3, The Constitution of Republic of Indonesia No 20, 2003)
34 All is my own translation.
35 In Indonesian language bertakwa means practicing what has been ordered by Allah (God) and avoiding what is forbidden.
115 By contrast, students were constructed in national policies in a more rigid way.
Students were required to:
a. Obey all regulations and rules in the university;
b. Participate in keeping facilities as well as cleanliness, ketertiban [adherence to the rules/norms] and security in the university;
c. Respect science, technology and/or art;
d. Maintain kewibawaan [image] and the good name of the university;
e. Menjunjung tinggi [uphold] national culture. (Article 110, The Regulation of Indonesian Government No 60, 1999 about Higher Education)
Students are positioned in relation to (1) the university, (2) science, technology and art, and (3) the national culture. All of these points suggest that the students have no other choices except following the rules and were constructed as docile (Foucault, 1995).
The above constructions of students were discursively extended to the qualifications of undergraduate students:
a. Mastering the basic of science and skills in particular field so that [the graduates]36 are able to find, understand, explain and formulate solution of particular problem in their field;
b. Being able to apply their science and skill in their field in productive [activities] and social service with compatible attitude and behaviour in the social community life;
c. Being able to act and behave [appropriately] in their scientific field as well as in the social community life;
d. Being able to follow the development of science, technology and/or arts in their fields.
(Chapter 2, Article 3 Ministry of National Education (MNE) Decree No 232/U/2000)
36 The word inside […] in point (a) (b) (c) are mine. I am guessing of the missing words as the result of translation from Indonesian to English. The original sentences are understandable in Indonesian language context but they would be difficult to understand without supplying the words. I take the privilege as a native speaker of Indonesian to guess the missing words from the logic of the sentences.
116 Statement (a) creates the elementary mastery of science and skill discourse and the necessary application of the basic mastery of science of the undergraduate students. The word “basic” used in the statement suggests the beginner level. This was then strengthened by point (d) which is
“being able to follow…”. Statement (d) made clear that the graduates were only desired to be
“follower[s]” in their fields. Statement (b) and (c) emphasise the need to balance science and community life.
Even though the universities have autonomy in designing their own curriculum, this was shaped by national curriculum:
(1) Higher Education is run based on curriculum designed by each of them;
(2) The curriculum as meant in article (1) referred to the curriculum operated nationally;
(3) The operated national curriculum was governed by the Minister. (Chapter 4, Article 13, The Regulation of Indonesian Government No 60, 1999 about Higher Education) In that regard, the universities were regulated. This Regulation was then extended in the Decree of MNE. The curriculum of higher education includes core and institutional dimensions:
a. Core curriculum;
b. Institutional curriculum. (Chapter 4, Article 7, MNE Decree No 232/U/2000)
While the core curriculum is clear, in that it consists of the content of courses, e.g., English linguistics and literature in my study, the institutional curriculum varies from one university to another. For example, MRU made community service and entrepreneurial skills part of the curriculum (Academic Guidance, MRU, 2014, p.12). At the IU, Tarbiyah Ulul Albab37, history of Islamic civilisation, and sufism are, among other things, part of the institutional curriculum (Academic Guidance, IU, 2011, p.57). An example of the university’s autonomy is the fact that the CCU course was compulsory at IU but was elective in the MRU. There has been a new Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia, No. 12, 2012, about Higher Education but it had not been formally referred to in the Academic Guidance of IU and MRU at the time of my research.
37 Tarbiyah literally means education. While Ulul-Albab has various meaning, which was taken from Al-Quran which can mean remembering Allah (God) in whatever conditions (Verse Ali ‘Imron 190).
117 It was likely that there was time lag before the new Constitution began to be formally adopted.
There are various competing discourses emerging in the new Constitution such as religious and
“noble morality”, the need of HE to be based on Pancasila (State Ideology) and the 1945 Constitution and “the cultures of Indonesia”, as well as Western discourses such as “scientific truth” and penalaran (reasoning), and neoliberal discourses such as “competition”,
“skilful[ness]”.
There was an absence of discourses which pertain to the use of ELT Methods and World Englishes in the national polices. This might suggest that national policies only provide general rules rather than disciplinary practice. The only related discourse emergent in the documents was related to teaching and learning: “applying student-centred learning which is compatible with surroundings” (Article 6, The Constitution of Republic Indonesia No 12, 2012).