Senior high school girls hanging out after class in Bali.
Not long ago I was sitting waiting for a ferry on a small island in eastern Indonesia. The Independence Day celebrations of 17 August were just a few weeks off, and group after group of schoolkids—some of them nothing more than first-graders—came marching past in perfect formation, diligently practicing their parts in the upcoming celebratory parades, and without an adult in sight. I asked one of the older children what was going on; their teachers hadn’t turned up that morning, so they’d organized themselves!
TESTING TIMES
As the month of April looms, Indonesian kids start getting decidedly twitchy at the approach of the dreaded Ujian Nasional, the national tests sat at the end of each of the three stages of the schooling system. These exams—which are basically tests of memorization rather than applied learning—put a huge amount of pressure on students. Until recently you had to pass to graduate to the next level of schooling, and the shame of failure was awful. But the weird thing is that each year the national pass rates for the Ujian Nasional are so close to 100 percent that I always find myself wondering exactly how the unfortunate 0.5 percent have actually managed to fail. The problem, of course, is institutionalized cheating on a quite spectacular scale—often with the collusion of teachers who are as terrified of poor results as the kids.
There are those who are trying to improve the education system. When President Joko Widodo was elected in 2014, he handed command of the Culture and Education Ministry to experienced educationalist Anies Baswedan, who set out on a program of reform (his progressive reputation was later tainted by his victory in a dirty fight for the Jakarta governorship). But it’ll be a long time before all the problems are ironed out. One of the unfortunate upshots of this is that those with cash to burn take their children out of the system altogether—sending them to privately run international schools at home or abroad, and then packing them off for university education overseas. This is creating a tiny youthful elite, speaking fluent English with an American twang and enjoying an outlook that places them poles apart from even the smartest of their stay-at-home compatriots.
University students in class.
STUDENT LIFE
Those who do make it through to the far side of high school go on to university. There are around 3,500 universities across the country, the vast majority of them privately run. As with so much else, gengsi comes into higher education in a very big way. Extravagantly overproduced studio portraits of sons and daughters in their graduation gowns adorn the walls of many Indonesian homes, and just how much prestige these images are worth is directly related to which university awarded the degree. The best of the hundred-odd state universities carry particular kudos (though none get much of an international ranking)—Gajah Mada in Yogyakarta (UGM), The Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), The University of Indonesia in Jakarta (UI), and Airlangga in Surabaya (Unair). In the private sector, however, it’s hard to avoid the suspicion that the relative prestige often has more to do with the scale of the course fees than the academic standards.
Being a student in Indonesia does, however, earn you a certain level of well-deserved honor. The student community has had a role on the national stage since the early days of modern Indonesia. ITB in Bandung was a hothouse of the independence movement in the 1920s; the vast student protest movement was a decisive factor in the seismic shifts that brought an end to the New Order regime in 1998; and Indonesia’s huge student community continues to give rise to movements for social change.
I lived for a while close to the main UGM campus in Yogyakarta—a city with no fewer than 21 individual universities, plus various further education institutes and colleges. It was a brilliantly bustling neighborhood with a permanent hum of lively conversation. It also had an epic array of cheap and tasty food and trendy cafés. British students might spend most of their extensive leisure time in an alcohol-induced stupor, but their Indonesian counterparts tend to stick to the much more sensible business of eating, coffee-drinking, and conversation.
Women in Indonesia: An Interview with Devi Asmarani of Magdalene.co
It’s always difficult to make sweeping statements about the position of women in Indonesia. On the one hand, Indonesian women work; they study; they run businesses; they are elected to government. At a glance they don’t seem like an oppressed gender. But on the other hand there are powerful undercurrents of religious and social conservatism, weak legal protection and many other challenges. I’m neither Indonesian, nor a woman, so I thought it would be useful to get some insight about these issues from someone who’s both.
Devi Asmarani
Devi Asmarani is the chief editor of Magdalene.co, an online magazine which she set up with fellow journalist Hera Diani in 2013. It’s one of the most interesting and taboo-busting of all Indonesia’s media outlets, with articles—most in English—on many edgy subjects which you’ll rarely see discussed in the mainstream press, including race, sexuality, and above all, women’s issues. I asked Devi to share her thoughts.
Why did you decide to start Magdalene?
We realized there was a gap in the choice of popular reading for women who wanted to read something of substance, a publication that provides a different perspective when it comes to women-related issues. We thought we could offer a certain edge that other Indonesian media didn’t have.
There’s no way you could write and have a healthy and nonjudgmental conversation in the mainstream media about not wanting to have children, or about being gay and an observant Muslim, or about growing up being told your breasts were too big and you need to cover them up only to find out later that it’s OK to have big boobs. There is a very strong sense of self-censorship that we don’t encourage at Magdalene.
How do you see the situation with regards to women’s rights in Indonesia today?
Not as good as it should be. I’m worried about the growing religious conservatism that has had negative implications for women in many parts of Indonesia. There are real concerted efforts to keep women in the domestic domain. There are 365 legislative products of local governments across Indonesia that discriminate against women or have implications on women’s freedom of mobility or expression. Many of these bylaws were issued in towns and districts in Aceh, West Sumatra, West Java, and Sulawesi.
I also think that not enough resources are being channeled to address the basic issues when it comes to women’s rights. There is the insistence to maintain the legal marrying age at 16 (when even the Indonesian law on child protection defines a child as someone below the age of 18). And there is still poor handling of sexual violence, while a weak legal system lets the perpetrators off easily. Female single parents also often still face challenges in obtaining legal or social protection.
I’m usually pretty positive when describing the position of women in Indonesia to other foreigners; do you think I should be more critical?
Yes, you should be. Do Indonesian women have a high level of empowerment and equality? Yes, when compared to some other countries in Asia and the Middle East. But there is a lot of room for improvement.
So what