Earth Calling Indonesian Department of Education

Helloooo… have you guys heard of this thing called privacy? Yes? So why did you make personal details of 37million (and counting) students across Indonesia available online? From Elementary School up to College and Universities? Including their school, home address, place and date of birth? And in neat Excel spreadsheets organised by province and region? And available for download by any perv with an internet connection and not-very-good intentions?

Knowing how kaypoh (nosy) Indonesians usually are (they will ask you everything about your personal life), maybe PRIVACY or IDENTITY THEFT aren’t exactly words they’re too familiar with. Maybe KIDNAPPING, or BURGLARY, or RAPE, or TERRORIST sound more familiar?

Hell, why don’t they publish a print catalogue along with it to be distributed to all schools and available at a bookstore near you.

Leave me a message if you’re curious about the link. Or you can do a Google search on your own. I don’t want to post the link here for everyone to see, increasing the possibility of some poor kid getting stalked by some sexually deprived mid-age “Oom” from Friendster.

To be fair, the intention was to enable teachers and schools to ensure their students are already registered under the Department of Education, along with their national studentID number. Good enough. And the Internet is an obvious medium to make this database easily accessible. But they could at least implement a password / security measure if they REALLY want to put it online? I know it’s not that simple with the programming and database building and whatnot, but an extra year or so of building a secure system will certainly be worth it?

Oh yes. I forgot. *slaps forehead* You guys aren’t concerned with privacy. Right.

I suspect this is one of the side-effects of the increase of the national budget for education up almost 100% from 2 years back. This is obviously an improvement, as education has been neglected quite badly for the longest time in Indonesia. But as Cafe Salemba noted, they should have a clear plan on how to spend it. Otherwise the budget will be used to fund pointless projects such as this one.

On another note, a friend pointed out that the government must’ve missed out on something more urgent: a worryingly small percentage of legislative candidates have their profiles available on the Candidates profile website. The header reads:

Apologies, Citizen of Indonesia. Only 32 out of 11,868 candidates have identities – For Election 2008

Others on the same issue:

• Treespotting
• Loose Wire Blog
• BudiPutra.com
• Venus (in Indonesian)
• Leonnie (in Indonesian)

Indonesia Needs Batman!

Rima, the particularly inspiring blogger, posted this news about the head of police force in Kupang, Indonesia, who got released from his duties because he uncovered the smuggling of 14 cars by his colleagues.

As my friend, BonBon puts it, Indonesia Needs Batman!

On a (slightly) more serious note, I honestly think Indonesia is turning into a huge Gotham City.

Visit Indonesia Part 1: Being a tourist in Jakarta

From 1st to 4th May the boyfriend and I was in Indonesia, mostly to show him off to people in Jakarta. Uhm, I mean introduce. Yes, introduce. And it was the first time I stepped into my own hometown as a tourist. In a nutshell, Jakarta is very much prettier seen through my tourist spectacles. It looks like the old Batavia with bis kotas and BMWs and bajajs. Even buildings in the worst conditions are pretty and just add to the character of the city.

After we landed in Sukarno-Hatta, we went to Taman Fatahillah with Museum Sejarah Jakarta and Museum Wayang on schedule. But apparently both museums were closed although my parents called the day before to confirm that they’re open on labour day. Fortunately the Museum Wayang curator was in and he invited us in (for a free private tour! and he allowed Billy to snap pics using his DSLR). It was formerly a Dutch Church and grave stones are still embedded in the walls, including J.P. Coen’s (the Batavia Governor whose name got stuck in my head since primary school’s history class). Other than the obvious collection of hundreds of Wayang Kulit, Wayang Golek, and puppets from around the world (some donated by Presidents of countries), there is a more interesting story behind the museum.

The curator, Pak Daniel, mentioned that the museum does not get funded by the Indonesian Government at all, but from Private donations, the UN, and sales of hand-made fine wayang kulit (which goes at Rp 300,000 for a palm sized Gunungan that takes 1 month to meticulously carve out of Vietnamese water buffalo skin) -he’s a descendant of Wayang makers in keraton, and apparently his 118 y.o. great granpa is still kicking. He mentioned that a few years back the gov’t called him and asked him if he’d like some funding (yes please). Along with that, they enquired how much share of profit they could get if they funded the museum (wth?!). So he declined the offer and a few years back UNESCO started backing him up for funding of the Museum Wayang. He travels around the globe with the UN and through wayang educate people in cities about cultures, and in villages on the importance of family planning and education.

Unfortunately the Museum Fatahillah wasn’t open so we couldn’t get a peek of what’s inside – last time I was there was more than 10 years back but I only remember the huge Dutch cabinets and the dungeon. Anyway, we got ourselves some drink at Cafe Batavia which has a really pretty interior, I’d say lounging in there is not unlike lounging in some gentlemen’s club in the ’20s. Billy was impressed at how much more genuine colonial era buildings are in Jakarta. Sure, Raffles Hotel and the Museums in Singapore are nice, and they preserve the facade of the colonial-era buildings. But they’re not genuine, they feel too man-made, while the atmosphere of buildings in Jakarta feels warm, genuine, rustic, and real. Stepping into an old building in Jakarta is just like stepping through a gate that separates 2008 and 1898. (But I suspect there’s the factor of lack of funding. If possible, I believe they would make everything from shiny marble. Ew.)

On the way back home we stopped by the Gedung Arsip Nasional (National Archives). Again, it’s a really pretty residence and there were people doing some pre-wed shots inside there – which inspired my Dad to play with the idea of having a wedding reception there (shock shock horror!).

We headed to some Sundanese Kuring restaurant for lunch, and for the first time in his life, Billy tasted Oncom and Cincau Hijau. Apparently green cincau is such a rarity in Singapore (if not unavailable) that a few days back when I peeked at Billy’s MSN window, her friend wanted to make sure that it was genuinely cincau in green he was eating and not cendol…