1. Every year, our government sends many students to study at top universities in the United States or Europe using taxpayers' money.
2. After 3-5 years we will welcome these new PhDs to--hopefully--contribute back to the people who paid for their study.
3. Most of these brand-new PhDs will work at our universities to teach the students and to conduct research.
4. However, with so many US- and Europe-graduated lecturers and professors, none of our universities made it to the list of top 200 universities in the world.
5. What went wrong?
6. My observation could be wrong, but apparently our PhDs who come back from overseas only bring "knowledge" with them. They don't bring "culture".
7. I lived in the US and Europe for some time. I admire how effective and efficient people work with no nonsense.
8. For example, postgraduate administration is handled by the Department. There's no long procedure for admission and registration. Any problems arising can be solved quickly and efficiently by the Department staff who is in-charge for postgraduate program. At the end of the study, final examination is organized quickly and efficiently by the Department, to ensure the students can graduate on-time without any administration obstacles.
9. I admire how people work in small organization, yet they're so effective and fast.
10. I think all PhDs who come back from overseas, they have seen and have experienced the same thing with what I have seen myself.
11. Then why don't we just copy what we have seen overseas in our universities?
12. If we want to make it to the top 200 universities in the world, we must follow exactly what these 200 universities are doing. We don't need to come up with new recipes, unless if we want to make our own list of top universities.
13. Just copy from them. Copy from Harvard. Copy from Cambridge. Copy from Stanford. Copy from Oxford. Just pick one university as a model, then do exactly what they're doing.
14. We have so many PhDs from these top universities. It's regrettable that they (including me) just bring us some "knowledge" in their theses and research papers, yet they don't bring us some "culture" that we can apply at our universities.
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2 comments:
Pak Bimo,
Walaupun saya memahami kegundahan yang anda paparkan di bawah, tapi saya sendiri cukup gundah melihat seringnya anda menganjurkan untuk "just copy".
Pola pikir "just copy" ini justru bukan pola pikir yang membuat USA dan Eropa menjadi maju, Pak. Mereka maju karena jeli melihat celah, ditambah mau bekerja keras.
Dalam "melihat celah", terkait dengan bagaimana memajukan pendidikan di Indonesia, anda tidak bisa sekedar "just copy". Seperti yang anda tulis sendiri, lebih sulit mengubah "culture" daripada menambah "knowledge". Kalau anda jeli, justru "culture" inilah yang harus dimanfaatkan, bukan dibumihanguskan dan diganti dengan yg baru.
Sekedar perbandingan: saat dulu Wali Songo menyebarkan agama Islam di tanah Jawa, mereka membawa knowledge, tapi tidak mengganti culture. Apalagi saat itu culture Hindu dan Budha sudah sangat mengakar di masyarakat. Lantas, apa akal mereka? Culture setempat dipakai sebagai media untuk menyebar knowledge baru tsb. Contohnya, wayang dipakai sebagai media penyebar paham2 keIslaman.
Kembali ke niat kita untuk memperbaiki pendidikan di Indonesia, lantas culture apakah yang sebenarnya sudah ada di Indonesia, dan dapat dimanfaatkan untuk menyebarkan knowledge? Inilah tantangan yg sebenarnya.
Sebagai penutup, di bawah ini saya meng-copy-paste link ke sebuah artikel di jurnal Science, di mana dibahas perbedaan budaya Harvard dan budaya Wisconsin; bagian2 yang saya pikir paling menarik akan saya highlight dg warna kuning. Budaya manakah yang lebih baik? Silakan direnungkan setelah selesai membaca.
http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previous_issues/articles/2009_01_02/caredit.a0900002
Salam,
Gea Parikesit
kalo di NU sih, budaya yg sudah baik dipertahankan, budaya yang lebih baik, diserap, diadaptasi.
tapi kalo pandangan hizbut tahrir lain lagi, teknologi boleh dicangkok, tapi budayanya kudu ditolak mentah mentah, soale haram
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