Reflections on the Human Condition - Api-fellowships.org

346 SESSION V
on education is more important than political
rhetoric as spoken by many politicians in
Indonesia. Action is more effective in changing
the child welfare condition rather than talking.
2. The concept of happy and healthy family has many
similarities with the concept Healthy Indonesia
2010. However, the services delivered in developed
countries are far more comprehensive than health
services in developing countries, including
Indonesia and Malaysia. Even though services are
not advanced as in Japan, the Malaysian budget
allocation and programs on health shows that they
are working hard in trying to increase the quality
of services for better conditions of their child
welfare. It is not only for curative programs but
also for preventive and promotional programs.
As an example, primary oral health care covered
all states in Malaysia and there are school dental
service in pre-school, primary and secondary
school. The main objective of this program is
to render children orally-fit when they leave
school via gradual and cumulative improvement
in their oral health status. In Indonesia, there is
a programme similar to this which covered preschool
and primary school students (it is not
covered for secondary school students). However
in reality, the program cannot cover all provinces
in Indonesia. Even in Jakarta, the program is
only applicable to a few schools; most of primary
school students had never experienced regular
dental check of once a year. It is different in
Malaysia where the program reached all states and
the coverage since 1996 reached more than 62%
of schools in the areas. For primary school, there
are five states which had 100% coverage by the
year 2001, and another six states had coverage of
more than 95%.
Table 3: Comparison of Public Expenditure on
Health in Malaysia and Indonesia.
Indicators Indonesia
(2002)
Public Expenditure on
Health (% of GDP)
Malaysia
(2002)
Source: Human Development Report 2005.
Japan
(2002)
1.2 2.0 6.5
The example shows how serious Malaysian and
Japan governments in allocating budget, creating
program and policy, and implementing programs
to increase child welfare. There are many programs
which the Indonesian government study; not only
Ref lections on the Human Condition: Change, Conflict and Modernity
The Work of the 2004/2005 API Fellows
in terms of the programs but how the Malaysian
and Japanese governments implemented these.
3. The child welfare conditions in Indonesia are due
to the chosen development strategy. In the era
of Suharto, the subject of development focused
on urban areas that pushed the rural-urban
migration to the level where the urban areas had
a high level of burden. Rural areas lost much
potential human capital because of the unbalance
migration process. Moreover, since the boom of
oil production, the government faced difficulties
in creating a vision focusing on the “take-off”
stages of development. Since the Minister of
Technology (later Vice President in the New
Order era) has experienced in aircraft technology;
thus, the focus of technological development is on
aircraft production rather than agricultural sectors
which can create job opportunities in rural areas
that can reduce human capital flow from rural to
urban areas.
4.
This aircraft project did not succeed. There are
huge debts to be paid, which burdened the national
budget during and after the financial crisis. Japan,
whose economic condition is far better than
Indonesia, is investing on electronic devices for
aircraft and on land transport vehicles which
are easier to sell compared to aircraft projects.
Malaysia also put their investment on building
electronic devices, specifically ICT-related devices
and land transport vehicles. Thailand and Vietnam
focus their development on agricultural products
and are now the top two agricultural products
exporter in Asia.
It is very important for Indonesian to rethink
strategic technological development, especially
with its high-density population in urban areas
and low-density population in rural areas. It is very
important to focus on rural development rather
than urban development, but it does not mean
not developing the urban areas. Indonesia should
develop the rural areas faster than before and slow
down budget allocation in developing the urban
areas to achieve equity services for children in
the fields of education and health in rural areas.
If facilities, job opportunities and services for
rural areas are better, the rate of urbanization will
decline and the quality of children in rural areas
will increase.
There are several programs that can be created in
order to increase the child welfare condition in