Events

CHAIRPERSON

Dr Michelle Miller, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. 

ABSTRACT

Education has always been an important area of development in Indonesia. The New Order government, for example, initiated education for the mass to ensure that school-aged children receive their basic education. However, education was not only about schooling, but also about nation building which was characterized by a top-down approach on how to become “manusia Pancasila”. For a young nation like Indonesia, nurturing citizenship awareness was indeed an important agenda for the government. However, state ideology of Pancasila was also used to support those in power and citizenship awareness was reduced to a week training, sub-district ceremonies for national holidays, district contests on Pancasila and a Monday morning flag raising ceremony. How about now in the post-New Order era? How are teaching and learning conducted? How are citizenship awareness and a sense of belonging nurtured at school? Do all children still have equal access to education? This 28-minute documentary is based on selected footage provided by Recording the Future project at Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean studies (KITLV)in Leiden.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Alpha Amirrachman is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) in Singapore, researching on decentralization of Indonesia’s education. He received his PhD in social sciences from Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR), Amsterdam University and M.Phil in education from School of Policy and Practice, Faculty of Education and Social Work, Sydney University. He was a postdoctoral research fellow at KITLV in Leiden during which he produced this documentary. He is affiliated with Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa University in Serang, Banten and Maarif Institute for Culture and Humanity in Jakarta. His research interests include anthropology of education, social inequality, citizenship education, identity politics, education decentralization and educational policy in conflict-affected areas.

REGISTRATION

Admission is free. We would greatly appreciate if you RSVP Mr Jonathan Lee via email: jonathan.lee@nus.edu.sg