“Your pride for your country should not come after your country becomes great; your country becomes great because of your pride in it.”― Idowu Koyenikan
The quotation above reminds us of how having pride towards our own country is one the most essential things of the nation’s pride itself. Moreover, we live in a country with its multifarious cultures, systems, people, and of course, way of lives. These great points should be the reason for us to be proud of our loved country, Indonesia.
As we know, the indicator of a good nation really depends on the quality of the human resources itself. The human resources with the positive dimension of characters would define the character of the nation. In other words, it is the human resources having crucial role in the nation pride.
In this modern era, intellectualism and social cultures of Indonesian people could be said are still left behind. There are so many “homework” must be done, mainly in the things of making the smart citizens of the nation (that has not achieved yet, even until now). The main key for solving this problem is focus on the human resources improvement.
By this point, as the young generation, now we have to pay a great attention to education, education, and education. Then, why do we have to pay our attention to education? Firstly, it is because education helps people understand good morals and differentiate between right and wrong, or good and bad. Therefore, it enables Indonesian to be more disciplined and productive.
Secondly, educated people can contribute largely to their country's economy by contributing with their skills and competencies, because only by education, we could build character of a generation. As Prayitno and Manullang (2011) stated,“The end of education is character.”
The last point, educated people are well aware from their country’s rules and laws. They surely understand about their duties and fundamental rights. For instance,they know the value of paying taxes, and thus pay their taxes on time. Allthese qualities of educated persons help them play a vital role in the progress of their country. Another view comes from Plato, “If you ask what the good of education is, in general, the answer is easy, that education makes good men,and that good men act nobly.”
There are also three main points in the education that have important roles, i.e. infrastructure, system, and of course, teacher. Exactly, teacher is one of the most important elements in building the character of a generation. Through teacher, students’ behavior can becontrolled seriously and their character will be built thoroughly. One point we must remember is teaching a kid means teaching a generation.
Actually, education is more than reading, writing, and arithmetic. It is one of the most important investments a country could make in its people and future, and is critical to reduce poverty and inequality among nation. Education is an essential human need, a necessity of society, basis of good life, and sign of freedom. One again, education is an important key for integrating our separate entities.
If Indonesia wants to be a developed country, afront-liner, and of course, civilized nation (mainly in 2045 when reaching its 1st century), the government now must pay its attention to education. If we do not note attentively towards quality of our generation, i.e. education, get ready for not only being left behind, but also drowning, even though we could simply consider that Indonesia is a rich country with its all resources.
Esai ini pernah dilombakan pada Essay Writing Competition EDSA Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta, Agustus 2015
