Education is one of the important aspects that must be owned in a person’s life. Former President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, once said that “Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world”. Yes, indeed, education is our main weapon to face this world. The higher the level of education we achieve, the more knowledge we will get. Therefore, education is important to all of us.
However, in the struggle for education, it takes a lot of struggles and money. In fact, the higher the education bench you get, the more expensive and difficult it is to get. In Indonesia, the education system still needs a lot of improvement and in various aspects. Although currently the Minister of Education and Culture has been trying to organise the education system at its best, there are always deficiencies in everything that exists.
Since 2019, the government has implemented a zoning system for students who wish to enroll in higher education. And in 2020, the New Student Admission (PPDB) at the beginning of last semester was carried out with a zoning system. The zoning system is a system that requires new students to choose a school that is within the closest radius, according to the domicile of each participant. This is regulated in the Minister of Education and Culture Regulation No. 51 of 2018 concerning PPDB. This is implemented with the aim that there are no problems with the backgrounds of students who have low achievement and social economy. Not only regional zoning, but also in terms of age. Prospective high school students who are older have a greater chance than the standard age of children enroll high school. However, this raises have many pros and cons from the parents.
In my opinion, this zoning system is not suitable. First, if the child is older, but enters high school and sits in grade 10, it will feel awkward to mingle with classmates who are not the same age. Although maybe this case is rare, it will certainly create an uncomfortable classroom atmosphere. Then, the regional zoning system caused many potential students to enter the school, but failed just because the area where they lived was not included in the school zoning. This causes many children to feel that they have failed to enter their favorite school, which could affect their mental health. The child may become lazy and do not want to go to school.
In addition, education in Indonesia is not evenly distributed throughout Indonesia. If we look around us, there are many Indonesian children forced to miss education because they are less well off. In fact, not all regions have schools. In big cities there are many schools, from low to high levels. But what about other regions? Not all regions feel the same as in big cities. We need to highlight this more deeply. Indonesian children must receive education, because education is a window to knowledge.
Lastly, in the learning system itself. At school, we are always required to master everything. Like it or not, sometimes we are even pressured to be good at all the subjects in school. I think this is wrong, because in this way, the child cannot recognise himself. The child does not know what skills they have, take their time to spend on studying, so that they will be less sociable and spend their youth with their friends. Not only that, if children were forced to learn many things, then over time, they will get tired and in the end, what they learn is just a memory. They could not understand the meaning of what they were learning. They only understand about the theory, because he lacks practice. Therefore, I think the government in the future needs to pay more attention to how the education system in Indonesia is, Not just stick to some of these systems, or with the student curriculum, but also how to make Indonesian students understand what they are learning in school.
