Sumpah Pemuda: The Role of Youth in The Nation’s Independence
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INDONESIA | Covid-19 has taken over our world by storm. We have changed our way of living, no exception in the field of education. Almost part of international societies is struggling or even more difficult times to hang on.
The Indonesian-African Youth Empowerment Forum 2021 was a platform for individuals, government, and stakeholders to exchange ideas regarding finding some potential solutions to solve the problem that occurs in Indonesia’s and Africa’s education system.
Indonesian-African Youth Empowerment Forum is organized by Indonesia Youth Foundation and African Youth Architect in hope to tackle the problem of inequality education by working together as youth of both countries to brainstorm new ideas and enhance a better relationship between Indonesia and Africa.
Indonesia Youth Foundation is a non-governmental organization, founded on July 23, 2020, engaged in public diplomacy to spread knowledge regarding Indonesia and bridge friendship with the international World. The African Youth Architects is a youth driven organization improving Africa through education and entrepreneurship
This virtual forum was held on 30 January 2021 via Zoom Meeting, with over 146 Indonesian and African youths participating.
This forum was the second event for the Indonesia Youth Foundation in carrying out its vision and mission, namely to Associate People, Spreading Insights, and Unlocking in the World.
During Covid19, Many tiring struggles have been faced, especially education sector in the world, such as in Indonesia and Africa. Started from closing direct learning in the class to the online class with some communication platform such as Zoom, Google Meet, Google Classroom, etc. Moreover, this scheme is implemented by all level of education, elementary school to university.
Indonesian-African Youth Empowerment Forum 2021 concentrated on the theme of “Remote Learning in Indonesia and Africa: Improvement and Implementation Strategies”.
The day of Indonesian-African Youth Empowerment Forum 2021 was a sharing session given by experts from African and Indonesia; Theresia Ebenna Ezeria (Member of Parliament of Indonesia (DPR RI) 2009-2014 and worked in Committee X (Education, Culture, Tourism, Youth, and Sports), Kaddy Momoh (Education & Research Director of African Youth Architects and also Former President of the African Student Association), Maman Fathurrohman (Head of the Center for Curriculum and Books Balitbang and Books of the Ministry of Education and Culture of the Republic of Indonesia), Heba Assem Adel Mohamed (Founder of Guardians of AfroArab Leadership Initiative and 2019 Young African Leaders Awards 2019) respectively.
In her speech, Theresia Ebenna Ezeria that “Coronavirus Outbreaks make all of people must take action more in education.” She said Before Covid19, The education system in all around the world, mostly to conduct teaching and learning in school used direct learning system which means the teacher and students need to go to school and doing learning by face to face.
She believed that Indonesia could take a part for action together with all of power from many actors. The main actors of remote learning system are government, schools, teachers, parents, students and stakeholders. Successful of learning will happen if all of the actors should have a significance of role, started from yourself.
Indonesia’s education gap getting bigger since Covid19 was existed. So this is our time as a youth to overcome the challenges with take a part, build your character and build a society with humanity.
In the second session, Miss Kaddy Momoh mentioned the challenges of African during Covid19 in the education sector. She talked if in Africa mostly students and teachers don’t have any access and good tools for teaching and learning activities since the Coronavirus Outbreaks take a place. There are three main of way to overcome this kind of problem which is increasing infrastructure, building high technology and highly access the internet.
Investment in Africa in Education Sector is too low. For Supply Generic Electricity, they have to put in the budget for education, however, the total of corruption in Africa is getting bigger. The biggest possibility for this problem is distributed more aid, more sources, and more collaboration within countries and communities.
One of the big challenges that could not be seen by one eye is the mental of students. Previously, they did not have any adequate facilities and infrastructure, and since Covid19 took place, it has gotten worse, the role of parents is needed for giving a lot better understanding and motivation to their child because many students have mental health breakdown cause their parent not look into deep about the importance of mental health such as wants to drop off from school. So this is a good time for parents to give their high affection and contribution for their own child.
In one of the questions and answer session, Miss Kaddy Momoh also gave her statement if education should be equal for everyone both in Indonesia and in Africa.
Mister Maman Fathurrohman presented some insight about Curriculum Transformation in Indonesia (Era and Post-Covid19). There are many obstacles faced by teachers, parents, and children during distance learning. One of the obstacles faced by parents at the preschool, elementary, and junior high school levels is not all parents are able to accompany their children to study at home because they have responsibilities that need to be carried out such as work and other matters.
E-learning has decreased the interaction between teachers and students which is crucial in the learning system. The current condition of the education system in Indonesia is included in a special condition, namely a disaster condition determined by the central government or local governments. In these conditions, the government can implement several specific policies to provide flexibility for educational institutions to determine a curriculum that suits current needs. As currently, the learning process still prioritizes the health and safety of both students and teachers. The simplification relaxation recommended by the government varies between subjects is a mission used to lighten the educational unit.
Indonesian government provides several reliefs from policies of education that have been decided such as free pulsa or provision of free quota for students and teachers for successful of e-learning by collaborating with several leading mobile card providers in Indonesia such as Telkomsel and Indosat.
Heba Assem Adel Mohamed stated that the world is forced to implement and conduct a majority of learning virtually. Within this, we suffer the issue of internet quality, especially for those that live in remote areas or financially unable.
They also have security issues regarding the database. Lastly about the maintenance and stability of applications in holding millions of students using them at once.
She emphasized the importance of working together and sharing our knowledge in order to allow young people to invest in their maximum capacity.
INDONESIAN – AFRICAN YOUTH EMPOWERMENT FORUM 2021 (DOCUMENTATIONS)
