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"The Cult of the Doctor": An Indonesian Variant

Author(s): Justus M. van der Kroef


Source: The Journal of Educational Sociology , Apr., 1959, Vol. 32, No. 8 (Apr., 1959),
pp. 381-391
Published by: American Sociological Association

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2264199

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"THE CULT OF THE DOCTOR": AN INDONESIAN VARIANT

Justus M. van der Kroef

As the study of the factors making for or impeding economic


development in the socalled underdeveloped countries of the world
intensifies, there is a growing awareness of the importance of the
cultural matrix that shapes differential concepts of welfare and hu-
man betterment. Though modern educational growth in these coun-
tries is frequently seen as an accelerator of cultural change, requisite
to the spread of technical and organizational innovation, the tradi-
tional, cultural value context continues to determine much of the
popular appreciation of various types of schooling, with consequences
sometimes detrimental to the general objectives of the national de-
velopment effort. An example on this order would be, what has been
called, "the cult of the doctor" in Latin America.' By this is meant
the persistence in South American cultural values of the aristocratic
Hispanic penchant for a life of leisured gentility, reflected in a "non-
utilitarian education" in which academic degrees are eagerly sought
more as status symbols conferring prestige in society, rather than
as a means of entry into the active application of specialized skills
needed by the community. A recent exhaustive analysis, published
by Professor William S. Stokes, of Latin American students' prefer-
ences in university curricula both in their own countries and in the
U.S., combined with his able study of the social value of university
degrees in this part of the world, leads one to the conclusion that
an overly scholastic, non-utilitarian education is much desired, and
that training in applied science and technology tends to be depre-
cated. Even such eminently "utilitarian" training as medicine, phar-
macy or veterinary medicine is sought more for its social prestige
value, rather than with a view to active application. Not only, Stokes
points out, has Latin America "produced more doctors of law than
their culture has required for hundreds of years," but also that2:

Almost everyone wants to be a medical doctor who does not


practice, a doctor of pharmacy who does not mix prescriptions,
a doctor of engineering who does not build, even a doctor of
veterinary science who does not personally inject the diseased
animal with the medicine it needs. The high status of titles such

1 William S. Stokes, "The Drag of the Pensadores," pp. 56-89 in James


W. Wiggins and Helmut Schoeck, eds., Foreign Aid Reexamined. A Critical
Appraisal (Washington, 1958).
2 Ibid., pp. 70, 75.
381

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382 THE JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY

as doctor, Lic., Ing., and Arq. is seen in the excessive use of


symbols. Everyone has his calling card with whatever symbol
of status he can claim ostentatiously displayed.
Fundamental to an understanding of the popular appreciation
of academic degrees in Indonesia is the position of the aristocracy
over the centuries. Though one must make allowance for significant
structural differences in the societies of the various ethnic units that
make up the Indonesian nation today, it remains true to say that in
virtually all of them there is a class of hereditary nobility and chief-
tains whose social eminence and mode of living influences to greater
or lesser degree the entire range of cultural values, also for the com-
mon man. In Java the priajih (noble), not only was the font of the
code of universally approved knightly virtues celebrated in folk dance
and drama, but he was also the public administrative mainstay of
the highly stratified old Javanese feudal order. In their control over
Indonesia the Dutch adhered to a policy of "indirect rule," which con-
firmed the aristocracy in its pivotal social position, indeed, relied
very heavily on the pricajih element in colonial government. Educa-
tionally this feudalistic policy had decisive consequences. For al-
though in the course of the nineteenth century liberal-humanitarian
considerations led to a gradual broadening of the Indonesian school-
system so as to provide all indigenous classes with an opportunity
to get modern schooling, the aristocratic cast of the colonial educa-
tional establishment remained prominent almost till the outbreak of
World War II and the end of Dutch colonial control. For one thing
the heavy reliance on the aristocracy in the colonial administration
required that some of the nobility be given a modicum of instruction
so as to prepare them for a civil service career, and as early as 1848
special schools sought to meet this need. Although the school system
was subsequently liberalized separate and qualitatively better schools
continued to be provided for the aristocracy. These were the so-called
Sekola Ra:dja (litt. "schools for rulers"). In 1892 a division was
made between "first" and "second class" schools, the former reserved
for the upper classes, the latter for the common folk, and in later
decades special training schools for future officials, (the so-called
OSVIA) also geared to the nobility, came into being. Not the least
because of the increased demands of the aristocracy itself for Western
quality type education comparable to the primary and secondary

3 S. E. Harthoorn, De Toestaud en de Behoeften van het Onderwijs bij


de Volken van Neerlands Oost India (Haarlem, 1965), pp. 103-185 and I. J.
Brugmans, Geschiedenis van het Onderwijs in Nederlandsch-Indii (Groningen,
1938), pp. 79-140.

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THE CULT OF THE DOCTOR IN INDONESIA 383

school system in the Netherlands, subsequent rev


educational system during the first decades o
created a new elite type of schooling, which v
and European-Native primary schools and a variety of secondary
schools prepared for higher education, while "second class" and ter-
minal education continued to be offered in so-called village schools
to the masses. The feudal focus of colonial education did not prevent
a growing number of commoners from being admitted to the better
grade schools, but the expense of such schooling, as well as the heavy
"Dutchified" academicism of these schools were highly effective bar-
riers. To the end of their administration the Dutch sought to preserve
the aristocratic tenor of indigenous Indonesian life.
In this process the Dutch communicated much of their own title
consciousness, the nature and complexities of which have already
been described elsewhere.4 In Indonesia "first class" or European
schooling and the academic degree became the hall mark of elite
status, the means whereby the priajih as well as the Indonesian com-
moner believed he could acquire, if only symbolically, equality of
status with his colonial Dutch overlord. It needs no elaboration to
assert that developing nationalism strengthened this belief, as well
as a demand for more and more school facilities that could promise
advance in social status. As early as 1851 the Dutch government,
taking a leaf from developments in (then British) India had cau-
tioned the Dutch States-General of the potential dangers of nationalist
agitation "among vain and self-willed pupils of government schools"
in the colonies.5 In the twentieth century Indonesians themselves
established a number of so-called "wild schools" (i.e., private schools)
to accommodate the demand for Western style education. Unquali-
fied personnel and other irregularities rendered most of this school-
ing into "a sort of educational swindle," in which it could happen that
a student who had failed his second year in a government high school
became the "director" of his own private high school.6 But as expres-
sions of widening aspirations to status mobility these schools were
certainly important. The same aspirations are evident in the demand
for academic degrees, which "were highly favored among the Indo-
nesian aristocracy," first because possession of a degree facilitated

4Justus M. van der Kroef, Indonesian Social Evolution. Some Psycho-


logical Considerations (Amsterdam, 1958), pp. 78-79.
5 J. A. van der Chijs, Bijdragen tot de Geschiedenis van het Inlandsche
Onderwijs in Nederlandsch-Indii (Batavia, 1870), p. 29.
6 M. Vastenhouw, Inleiding tot de Vooroorlogse Paedagogische Problemen
van Indonesii (Groningen, Djakarta, 1949), p. 38.

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384 THE JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY

entry into the more remunerative government positions, secondly,


because of their prestige value: "Just as in old Europe promotion
to the doctorate stood about on par with acquiring knighthood, so
in Indonesian society an academic degree was held in high honor,"
and Indonesian commoners with such degrees married into noble
families. But it must not be thought that all this social emphasis
on academic titles necessarily betokened a lively intellectual life in
colonial Indonesia or a broad interest in the achievements of the
mind. To the contrary. From the time that the editors of a nineteenth
century "Pedagogical Literary Monthly" could complain that
"strange as it sounds, under the sun of the tropics the interest of
Europeans in mental matters descends below the freezing point," 8
to the bitter diatribes against colonial Dutch provincialism and nar-
rowmindedness, uttered by Edgar Du Perron,9 one of the great co-
lonial Dutch writers just before the outbreak of World War II, the
intellectual atmosphere in colonial Indonesia was usually permeated
by an arid scholasticism in which the cult of titles fitted neatly in
the highly class conscious pattern of social relations.
The consequence, then, was that Indonesians often learned to ap-
preciate Western education largely in terms of its external status
value, retaining a deep reserve towards its actual intellectual content.
On the one hand this led, as the outstanding Indonesian statesman
and publicist Sutan Sjahrir has noted,'0 to a certain positivism in
the Indonesian's attitude, to a restriction of interest to the outward
phenomena of Western society and its achievements (e.g., the aca-
demic titles), without an attempt to probe deeper into their intellec-
tual dynamics. On the other hand it led to a confused groping for
a cultural identity of one's own, in which a distrust of the West as
well as an uneasiness with traditional Indonesian culture values alter-
nated: some Indonesians complained over the excessive Western-
ization of Indonesian youth, others pleaded for an "adaptation" of
West to East in the schools, yet, others defended Western education

7D. H. Burger, "(Structuurveranderingen in de Javaanse Samenleving,"


Indonesij, vol. 3 (1949), p. 105.
8 P. J. van Ravesteyn, "Vij ftig Jaren," p. 81 in P. J. van Ravesteyn and
H. Grondijs, Twee Bijdragen tot de Kennis van de Geschiedenis van het
Onderweiis aa Europeanen inr Nederlandsch-Indii (Batavia, 1896).
9Edgar DuPerron, Indies Memorandum (Amsterdam, 1946), esp. pp. 7-
16.

?10Sutan Sjahrir, "Our Nationalism and Its Substance: Freedom, Social


Justice and Human Dignity," The Voice of Free Indonesia, May 4, 1946, p. 2
(mimeo reprint).

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THE CULT OF THE DOCTOR IN INDONESIA 385

"as if it were a matter of life and death." 11 National independence


found most articulate Indonesians with unresolved questions on this
point.
One feature of the effect of the colonial educational system on the
Indonesian deserves special emphasis in this connection, and that
is the Indonesian's relative lack of interest in technical-vocational
training. The expansion of modern governmental control over the
Indies, as well as the development of industry and commerce, caused
an increased demand for skilled technicians of all kinds, ranging from
simple craftsmen to engineers. It cannot be said that the colonial
educational establishment did not provide such training. In 1909 the
first elementary trade schools were established (metalworking, car-
pentry, painting), and to these were added a great variety of secon-
dary vocational and technical schools (forestry, business administra-
tion, dental technology, veterinary science, advanced metallurgy, and
so on). From the first experience with Indonesian participation in
this type of schools was disappointing. As the onetime director of
the colonial department of education put it: "The pupils did not
seem to realize exactly what they wanted from the future. The edu-
cation did not reach the persons at whom it really aimed, but others,
who deemed themselves too important to be trained as workmen." 12
The contempt for manual labor, even among those "who can do little
more than a little reading and writing" (part and parcel of the
aristocratic context in which the Indonesian tended to appreciate all
education, including of the vocational type), greatly impeded tech-
nical educational growth. While it must be admitted that the cur-
ricula of the trade schools was often too theoretical, the potential bene-
fit the Indonesian might derive from such schooling-particularly
since a steady demand for it existed in the economy-was thus dissi-
pated by his tendency to see all training in social prestige terms.
Feeling himself too much an intellectual to start taking up manual
labor, the technical school graduate seemed mainly interested in an
administrative position, so that, as one critic pointed out, the technical
grade schools primarily turned out "badly equipped supervisors in-
stead of good workmen." 13 The same observation applies to higher
education. After the First World War Engineering-Technology, Law,

11 K. Neys, Westerse Acculturisatie en Oosters Volksonderuijs (Disser-


tation, Utrecht, 1945), p. 244.
12A. D. A. de Kat Angelino, Colonial Policy (Chicago, 1931), vol. 2,
p. 238. My italics.
13 J. C. Schook, "Het Technisch Onderwijs in Nederlandsch-IndiE," Ko-
loniale Studien, vol. 10 (1926), p. 690.

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386 THE JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY

Medical and Literary Colleges were established, but among Indo-


nesians the first named College was the least popular. Of the total
of 637 Indonesian students in various colleges in 1940, only 60 were
attending the Engineering-Technology College (as compared to 241
in Law and 308 in Medicine) and this small number formed a marked
"contrast with the growing need-especially since 1938-for indus-
trialization in this agrarian country." 14
The Indonesian's tendency to deprecate technical-vocational train-
ing has had important socio-economic consequences. Notwithstanding
the spread of modern Westernized education and the demand for
those with special technical and commercial skills in 1931 a Dutch-
Indonesian Education Commission, specially instituted to examine
the results of the school system, concluded that "it has been clearly
established that Western education for the indigenous population has
thus far left the village society untouched, and also has not given
any noticeable stimuli to the emergence of an independent class of
small and big native entrepreneurs." 15 Indeed, the intellectual-aristo-
cratic fixation of the Indonesian of whatever schooling caused him
to prefer a supervisory or white collar job above anything else, and
this meant that in the first instance he turned to the government serv-
ices or to the existing and limited opportunities in private business.
Soon enough there occurred an "oversaturation of these petty offi-
cials" even with an expanding civil service,' and while there was
undoubtedly also discrimination of Dutch employers against Indo-
nesians with schooling, it is more meaningful to see the growth of
a Western educated group of Indonesians, striving for but not finding
the desired white collar employment, in the context of the Indo-
nesian's educational values and employment interests. It is also
against this background that an often cited conclusion of the Dutch-
Indonesian Education Commission (that 25% of all Indonesian grad-
uates from Western schools were unable to find the type of jobs
where their education could be used) must be viewed.17 Moreover,
the Commission also concluded that in terms of society's future needs
of those with advanced or higher education an overproduction of

14Vastenhouw, op. cit., pp. 28-78.


15 Hollandsch-Indlandsch Onderwijs Commissie, Publicatie 11, Eindrapport
(Weltevreden, 1931), p. 40.
16J. Rinkes, Eenige Oorzaken Zven den Finantieelen Nood der Neder-
landsch-Indische Regeering (Semarang, 1932), p. 37.
17Hollandsch-Inlandsch Onderwijs Commissie, Publicatie 6A, De Werk-
gelegenheid in Nederlandsch-Indii voor Nederkzndsch Sprekenden (Welte-
vreden, 1931), pp. 73-78.

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THE CULT OF THE DOCTOR IN INDONESIA 387

Western grade school graduates could hardly be said to exist.18 The


native entrepreneurial and professional class in Indonesia, duly armed
with the necessary technical and vocational training, may have found
the colonial system a barrier, but in retrospect an equally great ob-
stacle to its development seems to have been its own, culturally de-
termined, educational values and job preference.
Political action (with its opportunity to satisfy the lingering
aristocratic inclination toward leadership) appeared to be the indi-
cated path for those who, with varying degrees of schooling, were
unable to satisfy their status ambitions. An analysis of the educa-
tional background of some 100 Communist agitators, who had been
apprehended after a series of attempted coups in 1926, revealed that
over 75% were literate (in 1930 more than 90% of all Indonesians
were still estimated to be illiterate), 2.4% had gone to high schools
and most had had considerable primary training.19 Even Indonesian
academicians (especially those with medical training) seemed to
spend more time in politics than in applying their professional skills.
President Sukarno, one of the first graduates of the Technical Col-
lege, has probably not spent more than five or six years of his life
in active engineering work.
It is necessary now to consider how these various trends have
been cast into even sharper relief since Indonesians formally attained
their independence from the Dutch at the close of 1949. Elsewhere
I have described the enormous expansion of the Indonesian school
system, since then, the remarkable advance in combatting illiteracy,
the greater diversification of the schools, as well as some of the
social problems that have accompanied this rapid growth.20 It remains
here to point out that, in view of the fact that "the Indonesian econ-
omy is still essentially stagnant," 21 the government bureaucracy has
become even more the prime employment target of the growing num-
ber of graduates turned out by the various schools. Indeed, in the
opinion of one expert, today "the bureaucracy and the educational

18 Hollandsch-Inlandsch Onderwijs Commissie, Publicatie 11, Eindrapport,


op. cit., p. 50.
19 W. M. F. Mansvelt, "Onderwijs en Communisme," Koloniale Studien,
vol. 12 (1928), pp. 202-225.
20 See by Justus M. van der Kroef: "Educational Development and Social
Change in Indonesia," Harvard Educational Review, vol. 24 (1954), pp. 239-
255; "Higher Education in Indonesia," Journal of Higher Education, vol. 26
(1955), pp. 366-377; "Education in Indonesia," The Phi Delta Kappan, vol. 39
(1957), no. 3, pp. 147-151; and "Social Dysfunctions of Indonesian Education,"
Comparative Education Review, vol. 2 (1958), pp. 15-20.
21 Benjamin Higgins in Far Eastern Survey, vol. 26 (1957), p. 164.

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388 THE JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY

system are locked in a self-perpetuating circle of distension in which


the second produces more and more diplomaed graduates which the
latter is forced to absorb."22 The growth of the bureaucracy (from
about 280,000 in 1940 to nearly 2 million in 1958) reflects, especially
considered in the light of its generally acknowledged inefficiency, the
continued preoccupation with gaining the status symbols of "non-
utilitarian" officialdom and of white collar prestige. Wholly in accord
with this is the parasitic function of the new indigenous entrepreneur-
ial class, whose business administrative ineffectiveness are traceable to
traditional "aristocratic" inclinations toward leisure and conspicuous
consumption, which, unchanged by an educational process that en-
courages instead of disparages vocational training, forces the govern-
ment to extend to this class all manner of special protective benefits.23
To meet the vastly increased demand for diplomas and titles, the
overthrow of the selective colonial educational system has meant a
nearly unrestrained mushrooming of private schools, and this in
turn has given dimensions to the problem of educational swindles
undreamed of in the era of the colonial "wild schools." Private secon-
dary schools and "universities" have appeared, which bestow a
plethora of diplomas and degrees, while lacking all facilities or quali-
fied staff to justify their issuance. From the chain of press reports
dealing with the periodic uncovering of such frauds space allows men-
tion only of one recent cause celebre :24

Police in Palembang have laid hands on a pseudo-educator who


has illegally undertaken an educational institution, which was to
become a secondary law school.
Raden Mutalib is charged with embezzlement. His institu-
tion, called "Tjahaja Siswa," was to give specialized education
to graduates of private or Government junior high schools. He
has so far managed to collect a large sum of money from stu-
dents who wished to enter his school. .. The imposter had al-
ready enrolled some 130 junior high school graduates. . .. To
his students he claimed to have a diploma for the English lan-
guage, for accountancy and even of being a second year student

22 Clifford Geertz, The Development of the Javanese Economy: 4 Socio-


Cultural Approach (Cambridge, Mass. April, 1956), p. 72 (mimeo).
23 For a fuller treatment of this problem see Justus M. van der Kroef,
"Economic Development in Indonesia: Some Social and Cultural Impedi-
ments," Economic Development and Cultural Change vol. 4 (1956), pp. 116-
133.
24 Jndonesian Observor (Djakarta), August 30, 1958.

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THE CULT OF THE DOCTOR IN INDONESIA 389

at the Law Faculty of Indonesia University. Actually he had


been a second year junior high school student.
The 22 year old Mutalib gave his name to be Raden Mutalib
M.A., to give the impression he had a master's degree. He ad-
mitted that M.A. stood for the initials of his father's name, Mo-
hammad Achmad.

Public pressure on teachers and examining boards has ranged


from instances of parental attempts at bribery, to kidnapping and
seizure of teachers as hostages by students wishing to pass examina-
tions.25 Refusal to be intimidated has brought cries of alleged "colon-
ialist" and "un-national" behavior on the part of the educators.
Meanwhile "the cult of titles" goes on as strong as ever, if more con-
fusingly, as the following editorial in a Djakarta daily makes clear :26

"INFLATION"

A chaotic situation presently exists in our country in scien-


tific degrees or titles, as a result of the fact that up to now
there is no law regulating them. We do not know exactly how
many people walk around these days bearing such learned titles
as Mr. (Dutch abbreviation for Meester in the Rechten, i.e.,
lawyer), Drs. (graduate of a college or faculty), M.A., B.A.,
etc., acquired from one of the numerous institutes for higher
studies mushrooming everywhere, even in the most unlikely
places. We probably still remember the case of the "Majapahit
University" . . . which although run by only one person ("presi-
dent," concurrently professor, secretary, board of examination)
managed to have hundreds of "students" in its five year exis-
tence, while very generously distributing the titles of "Drs., Mr.,
M.A., and B.A."
A number of graduates of foreign colleges or universities
with either M.A. or B.A. degrees willfully changed their titles
into "Drs." because the latter is more popular and wellknown
here. We do not speak of the great number of people with "Doc-
tor" (Dr.) titles, although almost none of them has ever pro-
duced a dissertation. . . . One case, however, has not yet come
up here, fortunately, i.e., about a man who lives in a country
where a title means so much and, therefore, thought it useful
to add behind his name: "B.A. (failed)."

25 Times of Indonesia (Djakarta), August 14, 30, September 16, 19


26 Indonesian Observor, September 16, 1958.

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390 THE JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY

That the aristocratic fixation also expressed in the title cult, has
not vanished in democratic, post-revolutionary Indoneesia is also
borne out by the fact that the Indonesian government recently warned
that many persons were arrogating to themselves traditional titles of
nobility, though not entitled to do so.27
The persistence of the cult of titles and diplomas has not meant
a quickening of Indonesia's badly needed technical and economic de-
velopment, and the white collar fixation produces a lag in precisely
those fields that could aid this development. A recent case study of
educational preferences reveals not only sharp differences in popular
appreciation of, on the one hand, so-called academic high schools
(which prepare for the higher bureaucratic functions, for improved
status in society generally, and for higher education) and on the
other, the commercial, vocational, and technical secondary schools,
but also that children of government officials have a better chance
by far of entering the academic high schools, so that the bureaucratic
elite and the aristocracy seem to be maintaining their social status
through the school system, while children of non-officials or of com-
moners have, as often as not, to make do with a type of schooling,
which however necessary from the point of view of accelerating the
growth of a class of those with special technical and commercial skills,
is generally regarded as socially less prestigious.28 Another recent
case study of an island society in Eastern Indonesia reveals a veri-
table run of pupils on the academic high schools, although various
offices are already filled to overflowing, while skills needed in the
development of the island's agricultural and commercial life are de-
precated and ignored, and thus the educational process and job inter-
ests of the students drains the community of its best human
resources.29 Only one type of secondary vocational training seems to
attract an abundance of applications, i.e., training for grade school
teachers, a traditionally prestigious white-collar occupation, which,
moreover, easily confers government civil service status. The mass
training of teachers, begun under a special program since July,
1950,30 has now, in fact, resulted in an oversupply of teachers, and
has forced some of those with teacher training into manual occupa-
tions.

27 Times of Indonesia, September 5, 1958.


28 Leslie H. Palmier, "Occupation Distribution of Parents of Pupils in
Certain Indonesian Educational Institutions," Indonesii, vol. 10 (1957), pp.
320-348, 349-376.
29A. van den Ende, "Pengadjaran dan Kebutuhan Masjarakat," Ekonomi
dan Keuangan Indonesict (Djakarta) vol. 10 (1957, pp. 215-226.
30M. Hutasoit, Compulsory Education in Indonesia (UNESCO, 1954),
pp. 86-91.

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THE CULT OF THE DOCTOR IN INDONESIA 391

In higher education pre-revolutionary trends also persist. The


total number of college students has greatly increased since 1940,
but educational preferences have not significantly changed. In the
academic year 1953-54 the total number of students in the two biggest
and best state universities (e.g., University of Indonesia and Gadjah
Mahda university) was 14,622. The largest percentage (37%o) or
some 5530 students of these were attending the faculty of law, so
and political science, while technology (engineering) had only 23.8%o
(3467 students), agriculture only 5%o (736 students) and veterinary
medicine only 1.2%o (178 students). The remainder was divided be-
tween the faculties of medicine, dentistry and pharmacy (25.2%o or
3694 students) and literature, education and philosophy (7%o or 1017
students) *31 Though in 1956 there were 2768 students in the Technical
faculty of the University of Indonesia, experience indicates that few
of these are destined to graduate as engineers: between 1920 and
1942 only 40 Indonesians graduated,32 and between 1945 and 1955
only 7,33 as compared to nearly 35 physicians and 50 lawyers in
the same decade. The "non-utilitarian" role of technical specialists
with academic degrees, especially in the medical field, has been greatly
enhanced by the organizational and administrative expansion of the
state which has the tendency to withdraw specialists from continued
practice, in order to have them act in a supervisory capacity over
various government services and welfare agencies. Indonesia's in-
creased participation in various international organizations has turned
its few specialists even more into travelling bureaucrats and diplomats.
That this "non utilitarian" employment of one's special talents is
not particularly resented is, as we have seen, wholly in accord with
the Indonesian's own appreciation of his academic training. From
all this it is clear that the potential benefits of the political revolution
of Indonesians against the Dutch still awaits an acceleration in the
transformation of educational and cultural values without which no
modernization of the country seems possible.

31 Palmier, op. cit. p. 365.


32 E. B. Penrod, "The Kentucky Contract Team in Indonesia," The Ken-
tucky Engineer, January, 1957. Professor Penrod, Chairman, Department of
Mechanical Engineering, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, served
as Group Leader of the Kentucky Contract team at the Technical and Science
Faculties of the University of Indonesia in Bandung, under the auspices of
the U. S. International Cooperation Administration.
33 Nieuwsgier (Djakarta), December 27, 1955.

J. M. van der Kroef is in the Department of Sociology at the University


of Bridgeport, Bridgeport, Connecticut.

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