On Religious Educational Institutes (1 of 2)

Along with two colleagues, I was recently invited to train students on introduction to creative thinking. As part of the continuation of our study last year, we handed out pre- and post- surveys to find out the role of motivation and culture in teaching creative thinking.

While waiting for the students to fill in their post-surveys, I looked around the room, which walls were filled with pinned up posters created by students. Intrigued about their contents, I paid a closer attention, and realized that these posters contained worldview from the point of view of a certain religion – which from this point on I will refer to as [beep].

What was interesting was that most of them contain very similar information on how disciplines of knowledge were related directly to quotations from verses taken from the [beep]’s holy book. Later I found out from one of my colleagues that in her classroom, this [beep] worldview was juxtaposed with Western worldview – which again, most of them contained very similar information.

With my curiosity aroused, during the break in between training sessions, I chatted with some participants to find out a little bit about their study program. These participants, in training to become teachers in elementary and secondary schools, are recruited from all over Indonesia. Apparently, most of them are on full scholarship and some pay twenty five percent of the tuition fee. They all live in housing that belongs to the university.

I was told that once they graduate, they would be sent back to where they came from, to teach in schools that belong to the same foundation which run educational institutions from pre-school all the way to graduate school. They were bound by a five-year contract, and had to contribute twenty percent of their future salary back to the foundation. (Note that meanwhile, they must work for ten hours while studying.)

I asked them about the posters, to find out if everyone was ok with the idea. Apparently, they all came from the same [beep] background. So no problem there (although a student said that sometimes she felt that she’s in training to become a [beep] teacher, teaching religions as suppose to biology), with the exception that in the name of the university, there is no indication whatsoever of its link to a [beep]’s belief.

Do these students know what they got themselves into when they signed the contracts at such a tender age when one graduates from high school? I don’t know. But the institution clearly set itself on a very strategic and religious role.

If, while reading this post thus far, you do not get what I’m worried about, try change the [beep] with a religion other than your own. Trust me, it can happen anywhere, anytime, in any religions other than your own.

Now I don’t have problems with religious institutions per se, including religious educational institutions. I myself went through [beep] elementary and secondary schools which were founded and run by [beep] leaders. But my parents sent me there because they believe in the value and quality of the education, more than on their religious convictions (none of my parents held the same beliefs with the schools I went to).

So the fact that this institution did not attach a [beep] in front or as part of its name, like most religious educational institutions in Indonesia, is frankly misleading. Or perhaps is it done on purpose?