A recent altercation between a teacher and a student at a vocational high school (SMK) in Jambi that drew public attention has raised widespread concern. Educational environments are meant to serve as safe and supportive spaces for the development of the nation’s future generations. Instead, they have increasingly become arenas of violence and conflict between educators and students. This situation stands in stark contrast to the government’s efforts to intensify implementation of Minister of Primary and Secondary Education Regulation (Permendikdasmen) No. 6 of 2026 on Safe and Supportive School Culture, which, in practice, continues to face significant implementation challenges.
UGM sociologist Dr. Andreas Budi Widyanta, commonly known as Abe, stated that educational spaces in schools should function as democratic social processes for dialogue. Within the same space, such two-way communication must not be detached from the three centers of education: family, school, and society. Unfortunately, what is currently occurring is a separation among these three.
“So, this conflict is not merely between teachers and students. There is a broader map of causes, as the root of the problem lies in the increasingly transactional relationships among teachers, students, and parents,” he emphasized on Friday (Feb. 6).
Dr. Abe assessed that the current condition of education in Indonesia is part of a long-standing narrative stemming from the impacts of education liberalization. According to him, schools have become increasingly commercialized, thereby diverting the fundamental philosophy of learning.
The root of the problem, Dr. Abe explained, can be traced back to the long history of education liberalization since the 1980s, which has culminated in a crisis of pedagogical relationships.
He also described this phenomenon as educational neoliberalism, likening it to a process of buying and selling. Transactional procedures occur when parents pay higher education fees to entrust their children to schools with great expectations.
Dr. Abe stressed that parents are naturally unwilling to incur losses, while teachers are no longer positioned as moral guides.
“Instead, teachers are treated as subjects subject to legalistic oversight that may even lead to legal proceedings,” he said.
Dr. Abe lamented that schools are increasingly losing their character as educational communities and transforming into arenas of economic relations. In this reversed condition, he emphasized that both teachers and students are merely actors being maneuvered by a larger liberal system.
Both are victims of systemic failure, making it impossible to improve conditions without restructuring the education system itself.
“It is clear that teachers need capacity building, but that alone is insufficient when the system is already this chaotic,” he remarked regretfully.
From a sociological perspective, teachers, students, and parents alike may all find themselves in positions of either right or wrong. Dr. Abe illustrated this condition through the fear teachers experience when reprimanding students, haunted by the risk of being reported and facing legal consequences.
As a result, schools no longer function as spaces for shaping democratic citizens, but instead shift into procedural arenas resembling judicial processes.
“Schools are no longer spaces for critical dialogue, but have become spaces that submit to a logic of fear and legal surveillance,” he explained.
Dr. Abe firmly emphasized the need for a fundamental overhaul of the entire neoliberal education ecosystem if the state truly aspires to become a great nation. According to him, transactional relationships born out of education liberalization pose risks to all parties, as they create ecosystems that do not support the emergence of virtuous practices.
He argued that such a system only perpetuates endless conflict, increasingly amplified by virality in the public sphere, and therefore must be dismantled.
“Does this nation, does this state, have the courage to radically reform the system and return it to the principles of our Constitution?” he asserted.
Author: Hanifah
Editor: Gusti Grehenson
Post-editor: Zabrina Kumara Putri
Illustration: Freepik