Bapak Sudarno

Sudarno is developing an approach to post-elementary education that is designed to produce a new generation of community activists in poor rural communities.

As Indonesia emerges from three decades of authoritarian rule, civil society is surveying the aftermath of repressive government. One casualty among many is the education system, once molded to fit the state's program of social control, and still rigidly conformed to that shape despite the new growth going on around it. Sudarno works to create what he calls "NGO schools"–centers that employ new ways of teaching and learning to foster critical thinking and social consciousness, particularly in poor rural areas that had been systematically victimized by government policies or programs. His first comprehensive effort in Deli Serdang, North Sumatra, teaches students aged thirteen to nineteen. Plans are underway for two more schools in neighboring communities, while Sudarno is promoting his work among farm and labor groups in Central Java and is looking to work in Aceh.

If the low quality of education in Indonesia is a legacy of the country's authoritarian past, then it is also a major obstacle to the growth of civil society in the future. On the face of things, it can appear that dilapidated buildings, a dearth of teachers, superficial curriculum, and implausible teaching methods are the natural consequence of any country's struggle to develop. Yet just beneath the surface lurk more deliberate reasons why parts of Indonesia, particularly rural areas not wholly controlled by the machinery of state, barely manage to educate their students at all. During the thirty-two-year reign of President Soeharto, communities labeled communist, as well as those that favored organized labor and other groups opposed to the military, were systematically denied services, including education. In fact, an entire generation in such places was deprived of opportunities to study, work, and travel outside their regions. Special codes were stamped on their identification cards. Letters from police were required to accompany their job applications. A vicious circle evolved: lack of investment in education led to bad schools; weaker students emerged; regional development stagnated. Even where the people were not considered a threat, public school facilities in remote rural areas and overcrowded towns are a disgrace, their buildings falling down, and their staff partial and inadequate. Learning depends on rote memorization; teaching resembles indoctrination. Indonesia, now embarking on the path to a democratic future, has an education system not yet touched by the revival of independent thought and action that is resuscitating the civil sector. Under these conditions, how will aware, informed, engaged citizens–the heart of any functioning democracy–evolve?

Sudarno began to lay the foundation for his approach to education in 1988. He gathered community activists and certified teachers in the rural area of Deli Serdang, North Sumatra, and set up his first middle school. Importantly, to get around the worst restrictions of the state school system, he registered as a religious school, which gave considerable leeway with respect to curriculum so long as he taught the Koran. That school departed from the norm in several ways: it encouraged students to formulate rules and regulations in their classrooms; lengthened class periods to allow for dialogue and debate; deleted subject matter considered to be indoctrinary; and took students out of classrooms to explore the natural world and the realities of their environment. They worked with farmers and learned about the ecosystem of rice fields.Students also explored beyond the known walls of history that the state had constructed for them. Textbooks used throughout Indonesia describe in gruesome detail an official version of the attempted coup of 1965. Sudarno took a bold step by deleting these chapters, hurtful and demeaning to the communities where he worked. However, for political reasons, Sudarno was prevented from developing fully his ideas for altering secondary education further and from setting up his own high school. Nonetheless, Sudarno continued not only as teacher and principal in his middle school, but also developed an influential network among traditionally oppressed peoples such as plantation workers and fishermen.
In 1998, when it was clear that the country was moving towards democracy, Sudarno felt he could pilot his idea of an "NGO high school." He recruited teachers from among activists, experienced farmers, and accredited teachers. The school is now in its second year (high school lasts for three years), and will graduate its first class in 2001. Sudarno has already found jobs for next year's graduates, some among farmer and labor organizations and the organizations with which they work. Next year's entering class will include students from farmers groups in Java, as well as from other parts of Sumatra. The school day starts at seven and continues until noon, when there is a break for students to cook their midday meal. Afternoons are spent in community activities. For example, they may be given the task to find the best way to disseminate information among local fishermen. Students and teachers gather again from four until six to discuss their experiences, and it is not unusual for these discussions to continue into the evening. Sudarno believes in the "school without walls." He has provided a plot of land on which students can practice organic farming taught to them by experienced local farmers.
As many students come from families that cannot afford to pay for their children's education, the farms also earn money for school fees. The students also learn to make sandals and to sew. They produce tote bags that have become popular among organizations who give the students the opportunity to see them at seminars in which the students also participate. Sudarno plans to establish two new schools with in the next year, working with people in neighboring communities. With the easing of political restrictions, he plans to devote more time to working with labor and farmers groups across the country to show them how they too can establish "NGO schools."

Sudarno was three years old at the time of the communist coup of 1965. His parents were victims of government discrimination, unable to get jobs because of their alleged organizational affiliations. The number on their identification cards included the suffix ET, for former political detainees, and branded them as undesirables. Sudarno was also branded, and although he managed to be educated and find work as a writer, he was refused the scholarship he had won when his parents' political history was discovered. He returned to his village in the late 1980s armed with a teaching degree and the idea of finding a way to educate children who had been denied because of their parents' or grandparents' past affiliations. In working first with politically disadvantaged groups, Sudarno now finds that his education system is highly suitable for other groups disadvantaged by poverty or bias.