Jakarta (Kompas: (19/05/07) There are three problems related to the poor condition of education in Indonesia, namely, low pedagogic quality of education policies, lacking of sensitivity among decision-makers and people’s inability to assess and to monitor the performance of decision makers in national education. Those three problems demand a rational solution in an intuitive concept of “pedagogic quotient.” This concept is a simple means for the people to assess and to monitor the performance of decision makers in national education. 

Various policies in education implemented in laws and regulations affect education quality and management. It is important that decision makers – education experts who work on the ideas and transform them into policies as well as officials who make decision— possess adequate "pedagogic quotient.”

Pedagogic Quotient

As an intuitive concept, pedagogic quotient is quite simple and easy to help the people observe and evaluate the performance of decision makers. This concept and its implementation should be seen as a small hub of democratization in education, which hopefully could contribute in improving the national education quality. It is likewise with the scholastic intelligence which usually refers to IQ (intelligence quotient), pedagogic quotient could be perceived as a result of “pedagogic skill” and “pedagogic age,” scored by 100. The pedagogic age of a decision – maker is set between one (minimum) and 10 (maximum), depending on the impact of policies he/she produce.

Education experts who work on the ideas or decision-makers who draw up education policies need to have an excellent pedagogic maturity, or having a score 10. Meanwhile, pedagogic skill whose scoring range is between 1 and 10, depends on the impact - improvement or deterioration - of the policies they produce or introduce. Decision-makers whose policies do not produce any improvement nor deterioration in education management, are considered of possessing pedagogic skills equal to his pedagogic age. Consequently, they are considered having pedagogical quotient 100—or a mediocre score. Decision-makers whole policies produce improvement is considered of possessing pedagogic skills superior to his pedagogic age, thus their pedagogic quotient is beyond 100. Meanwhile, decision makers whose policies produce deterioration are considered of possessing pedagogic skills under their pedagogic age, thus their pedagogic quotient is below 100.

Let’s take two examples on the implementation of pedagogic quotient to evaluate and to monitor education policies with a nationwide impact, namely, teachers certification and final examination. We have found out that those policies only nurture the culture of shortcut and cheating. Worse, shortcut and cheating are not only carried out by individuals, but they were initiated by institutions, thus they have caused a grave cultural degradation. Policies on teachers certification has encourage some universities to run its S-1 program recklessly, and it also prompts many parties to run teachers competencies based on administrative presence through workshops, consequently this only deteriorate teachers’ quality. Meanwhile, the policy on students’ evaluation has encouraged many schools to establish their ‘success teams,’ it even encourages a school principal to steal examination material to help his students to graduates even though it is carried out through dishonest matter.