Istana Negara, 4-12-2005

Dialogue with the Participants of the International Congress for Education

 

TRANSCRIPT
DIALOGUE THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF INDONESIA
WITH THE PARTICIPANTS OF
MEETING WITH THE PARTICIPANTS OF
THE INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS FOR EDUCATION
ISTANA NEGARA, 4 DECEMBER 2005



UNESCO
Bapak Presiden Yang Terhormat,
I’m Director of UNESCO Regional Bureau for Education for Asia and The pacific in Bangkok. I have been asked by the Director General of the UNESCO, to represent him today. He wanted me to cursed thank you very much for agreeing to meet with delegation at this meeting. He also wanted me to say how much he regret that he could not extend his stayed in Indonesia to be able to meet with you, but he had to go to back to Paris. Thank you very much.

I just want to say a few things and ask one question. I think we have found in our visit here, off course, that you mention in your presentation, very many interesting and innovative things that have been done in education. The government concern for the wider education not only requiring to access but also the quality of education. I only know one ministry of education, this one, but as the director general focusing on quality issue, which is I think unique in the world, that I congratulate you on that the new teachers … 20% budgetary prohibition that you mention, the idea of block funds and the subsidies, and scholarships to student, the focusing on decentralization of activities. All these things are that I think are pioneering in the region if not in the world.

Maybe just one question. In term to be used the block funds scholarships and subsidies, this related to the issue of governance, you mentioned, in the country as big as divers, geographically difficult as Indonesia is, what you think can be done to ensure the transparency and the efficiency of the use of this large amount of money that are being send down as the should be, I think to the bottom of the system, to school, to the individual student.

Thank You.


President of The Republic of Indonesia

Thank you very much for your comment on our effort in improving the quality of our educations, and I do hope that we could cooperate better, member of the United Nations with the United Nations, and also partnership and cooperation among nations.

As I had said earlier, that education is our challenge, global challenge. And it is also the objective of the millennium development goals. So, for me, each nation has to work real hard to do our best, to improve the education in her country. But to succeed, we need real, really global cooperation and partnerships. And I do hope that the United Nation can contribute more, a lot, in having good cooperation and partnership among members of United Nations.

Your question is very important that bureaucratic reform, building good governance is our main agenda, in the years to come, probably in the decades to come. We need not only a clean government, but we need a responsive, a transparent, a accountable, an attractive and efficient government. And we are in the process of improving those characters of government.

In distributing the funds to be allocated to sector of education across the region, down to kabupaten, kecamatan and the village level, we are, off course, conducting very attractive supervision, having a report channel. We also send our team to return, to make sure that fund is distributed properly. And now deviation of that distribution, I kept asking to all governors, all regions and mayors across the country to manage the distribution of funds and to make sure that all funds are used properly by the schools to improve the quality of education.

I also invite NGO, the press, to booked with Indonesian government, to ensure, once again, that our policy is done properly in the region, and especially in the distribution of funds, we also invited their supervision, quote unquote, to again, having transparency and high degree of accountability.

So, we use many channels, methodology, to make sure that the funds is distributed properly.

Thank you very much.


United Nations

I am from Egypt, and I am Chairperson of the United Nations Negotiation … Development.

With your permission, a very brief … Mr. President.
First of all, your determination, your government determination to education very obvious and very clear. And I think that … because there, since the establishment of human right negotiation and ..., so we can try to establish vary economic, social and cultural right to the development country, despite political right.

….

Thank you.

President of The Republic of Indonesia

Thank you.
I better stand up, so I could see you all.

Thank for your ideas and great recommendation.
When I delivered my speech before the United Nations on the High Plenary Session, last September in New York, I did say clearly that we need a genuine, an effective cooperation and partnership. For example, in achieving the development of the millennium development goals, developed nations must take your responsibility to help developing nations. They have to allocate resources, to make sure that the target is achieved.

And I also ask my fellow, world leaders of developing nations to do domestically our home works, to have the great plan, to develop good governance, to fight corruption, in order, all resources allocated by the world, quote unquote, to all developing nations are used and manage properly. And we could, off course, allocate those resources to improve the quality of education and other target set up by the United Nations in Millennium Development Goals.

And during the 2nd Asia-Africa Conference, held here in Bandung and Jakarta last April, we agreed to give a strategic partnership, new strategic partnership. In the past, the spirit is to confront, because we were living in the era of colonization. We are now free from colonialism. But off course, fight for justice is still relevant. It means, that we have to save the mindset, the paradigm from to confront, to fight against, into to cooperate, to connect, to build partnership and to fight for poverty, fight for injustice, fight for the best … of our educations and others.

It is very important. And off course, the time has come into this world. We have to enlarge our networking. But the spirit is the same, to cooperate, to build partnership, to work together. And I do believe, that with that kind of mindset, with the proper role done by the United Nations, I believe that we’ll be able to achieve all objectives that we set up in the millennium development goals, or other objectives, such as building a peaceful, democratic, just and proper world. That’s our mission in today’s world, and our challenge.

I agree with your thought that we have to do more. We have to build more partnership and cooperation, not only between developed and developing countries, but Non-Aligned Movement, South-south Cooperation, and others.

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