In order to fulfill this constitutional mandate, the government has issued additional documents to complete the previously submitted financial notes.  An addition of Rp. 46.1 trillion has been made to the education budget, meaning that the total allocation for education in the 2009 State Budget will be more than Rp. 200 trillion, far higher than the allocation for 2008, which reached only Rp.l54.2 trillion.
 
Besides that, the assumption on oil price levels has been adjusted to US$100 per barrel, still within the range of US$95-US$120 per barrel approved by the House of Representatives, and the budget deficit has been raised by Rp. 20 trillion to 1,9% of the Gross National Product. The government’s efforts certainly indicate a positive response to Constitutional Court Decision No. 13/PUU-VI/2008, dated August 13, 2008.

Hopefully the long journey will soon be over toward the goal of providing at least 20% of the budget for education since the fourth amendment to the 1945 Constitution on August 10, 2002.  The ball is now in the hands of the House. The people are simply awaiting the legislature’s ratification of the 2009 State Budget.

Yet, a larger budget is no guarantee that education in Indonesia will improve automatically because the budget increase must go hand in hand with careful prioritization of its utilization. There are several pressing needs in the education sector, including the expansion and improvement of educational facilities and infrastructure at the primary and secondary educational levels, such as classrooms and laboratories, as well as the provision of equipment and the necessary learning materials.

Improvement of the welfare of educators must also be prioritized. The plan to raise teachers’ salaries to more than Rp. 2 million (for lowest level) will surely earn the support of all stakeholders. Everyone has been a student, so it would be despicable for any of us to not want to improve the welfare of our educators.

In his state address, the president also mentioned that the additional allocation to the education budget in the 2009 State Budget was also meant for the improvement of the income of researchers.  It is logical enough that researchers, as well as the teachers, deserve recognition for their efforts to seek new developments in science and technology. 

Teaching materials will become static and outdated if no effort is made to enrich them with the latest developments in science and technology.  Research is an inseparable partner for the education sector. We have long been aware of this, as can be seen in the Tridarma PerguruanTinggi Higher Education Principles that stipulate education, pedagogy and research as core functions in service to the public.

Education must be viewed as an investment in the development of quality human resources. 
This is particularly true of basic or primary education, and the government is required, on the basis of the mandate set forth in Section 31, Article (2) of the 1945 Constitution to provide free education for each and every citizen of this nation.

Although it is the government’s responsibility to fully fund education from the State Budget, it is also the responsibility of each and every concerned party to prove that this huge investment can bear equal results, that being the production of quality human resources, who will, in turn, “pay back” that investment through their work and service to the people of this country.

Certainly, a lot of factors to be taken into consideration here, including the need for the curriculum in use to match up with the cultural roots and the development needs of the nation, so that the resulting human resources will be more capable of contributing and handling the problems faced by the nation and its people.

The relevance of education, particularly at university level, must be sharpened.  As things are now, there is a definite gap between the academic and business worlds.

This gap must be bridged so that education will become much more relevant to the world of business, and the world of academics will not seem foreign to the players in the business sector. 
With the significant increase in the education budget, it seems only reasonable that the public’s expectations (particularly those of the parents of students) also expand. The quality of graduating students at each level must improve. One of the core prerequisites to the production of quality human resources is the dedication of quality educators.

Teachers at the elementary and secondary education levels must be capable of providing all students with an appropriate and adequate understanding of the need to continue their education to the highest levels.  The consequence of this expectation is that the academic levels of teachers must also be raised. This means that at university level, lecturers must not only have academic capabilities and continue to add to their knowledge in their fields, but they must also have sensitivity toward the realities of life, at the very least in relation to developments in their own fields of expertise. The concept of relevance in education becomes irrelevant for discussion if this basic prerequisite is not met.

It is totally understandable that educators would be thankful for any increase in the education allocation.

However, it must also be kept in mind that this alone would result in a zero sum game. The increased budget in the education sector is being paid for by sacrifices in other sectors. Because of this, all universities must prove that they are paying adequate attention to and properly handling the education sector, so that the budget allocation will not be construed as a mistake.
The strong dedication of educators over all this time provides a ray of hope that this major policy step will be capable of creating a better Indonesia in the future. Congratulations Indonesia.