At the implementation level, however, the values of Unity in Diversity are yet to be integrated into the education system in terms of the official curriculum as well as the hidden curriculum.
The official curriculum includes what is planned, taught and tested while the hidden curriculum involves what is not officially planned and taught but learned by the students anyway. True, the official curriculum does emphasize the importance of tolerance and respect and even tests students on these concepts. Yet, when students witness how their teachers sometimes abuse their authority and discriminate on the basis of beliefs, cultural values, skin color and class, what the students learn is the contrary of what is officially taught.
As shown by the recent experience of one my friends and their son, our teachers need to be further enlightened on the values of multicultural education and better equipped with strategies, methods and media to convey these values in the official as well as hidden curriculum.
Having decided not to enroll their child in a religiously-affiliated school, my friends were impressed with the benefits of a multicultural education as advertised by an enthusiastic brochure of a lab school operated by the teacher training department of a prestigious state university.
Laboratory ("lab") schools traditionally reject narrow educational models. My friends enrolled their son at the lab school believing that he would receive a quality education while developing his sense of nationalism in a culturally diverse learning environment.
The parents were shocked to find that their son was increasingly inundated by the culture--including the religious beliefs--of those who happened to constitute the statistical majority of the student body. This is despite the fact that the boy is himself a "minority" and comes from a very different cultural and religious background. His right to be recognized as a member of his own culture was thus denied.
The school principal explained that the school could not afford to hire a special teacher who would be willing and able to recognize and respect the child's culture.
For the past few years, the move to develop schools with Indonesian vision that conform to international educational standards--the "national plus" schools--has driven schools to pursue educational excellence solely for the sake of increasing school prestige.
Many of these schools seem preoccupied with interpreting the "plus" and competing with each other in delivering what they consider to be a "plus" education, including certain trappings of multiculturalism. Yet, the meaning of "national" seems to have been neglected.
Is it simply adopting the national curriculum and being accredited within the national system? Or should schools also engage themselves in developing the shared vision of what constitutes this nation?
Discussion of the nationhood of Indonesia is never-ending and has always sparked heated debate among social scientists. This unresolved discourse surfaces in schooling practices in ways that are detrimental for students who do not come from a mainstream background.
Theresia Esi Samkakai, formerly a teacher in Merauke, laments the reluctance of teachers to understand the Papuan cultures and hence the failure of the system to educate Papuan children. Mama Esi's concern is shared by many, especially those belonging to indigenous tribes or living in remote areas.
Teachers, many of whom come from urban backgrounds and have been brainwashed in the national education system, are not aware of the need to construct learning models that involve student participation and integrate students' existing cultural values.
A student's lack of proficiency in Indonesian language and unfamiliarity with urban ways is often interpreted as stupidity and laziness. A great number of children from the Dayak, Amungme, Kamoro and many other tribes do not survive the system and are relegated to the lower percentiles of the national exam rankings.
Whether or not intentionally, teachers who are preoccupied with their own status within the education system deny these children their cultural rights. Ironically, a teacher like Butet Manurung, who works with the children of the jungle in Jambi, Central Sumatra (Sokola Anak Rimba), can remain true to the educator's calling to respect student rights to culture only if she continues to work outside the traditional education system.
If our schools do chose to fully engage themselves in developing a shared vision of nationhood, the government (national and local) will have to give then more room to develop their knowledge base and cultivate respect for Indonesian cultural diversity.
To transform multiculturalism into something more than jargon, the national education system should embark on a journey of reaching out to underprivileged children. The journey can start with the development of a constructivist pedagogy of literacy in the pre-service training colleges. This pedagogy should include incorporation of a student's mother tongue and culture into the school program.
Moreover, assignment of teachers to areas culturally foreign to them should be preceded by a screening for social and cultural competence. While it may be hard to find teachers fluent in every relevant dialect and cultural nuance, it seems only reasonable that educators would have the heart to exert themselves to learn local languages and customs.
Finally, we should recommit ourselves to delivering a higher quality of in-service training for teachers so as to allow them to develop their teaching strategies, methods and media in ways that respect and promote cultural diversity.
Adoption of a national curriculum at the expense of a child's right to his or her own culture can become a boomerang that turns upon us and jeopardizes our sense of nationalism.
The writer teaches at Widya Mandala Catholic University, Surabaya and is a member of Indonesian Community for Democracy (www.komunitasdemokrasi.or.id).
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