COCONUT AS NEW RESOURCES

Indonesia has many resources to explore, and we have yet to discover what the best one is that will not be ran out of stocks for a long time and will not pollute our land.
I have known coconut as useful trees from my parents’ story about how our ancestors survived in the villages that suffers from lack of energy to be produced as electricity, fuel, etc. They ate the coconut as their food, used its leaves as the materials to build their houses and used its oil as the fried oil. Those things happened hundreds year ago when the technology was not even there. With such a high technology today, those simple things that our ancestors did could be more useful and grow better than that.
Using coconut-shell as briquettes is another step to an exchange of our non-renewable resources to the renewable one. Coconut trees could be found in almost everywhere in this country. Some areas, especially in Sumatra, are often recognized as coconut producers. And the business instinct of some people to use the resources available there, which is coconuts, is a brilliant idea as coconut is useful. Instead of polluting the area, coconuts waste can be used as fertilizer too.
I think the government has to support some kind of business like this, the one that is not just producing something, but also the one that help the environment to be greener than today.

EDUCATION IN INDONESIA

I am wondering how come education as the basic of everything in this life can not be accessed by a greater part of the people in Indonesia caused by the high cost and the policy that keep changing from time to time.
In the past, it was so easy for most of the students to go to school with the available books that were sometimes inherited by their siblings or their seniors at schools. It was because the policy stays the same for some years. Even if it changed, it would only change some aspects of the policy. And the cost of education that time was affordable by the common people, while the high class would normally choose to go to private schools.
But today, look at the policy of education that keeps changing following the change of its officials at the department. Some say: “When the officials change, they will change the policy too.”
And look at the cost that has been increased in the name of new books, new uniforms, new chairs, new tables and new facilities that never affect the quality of education given by the schools. Yes, the stuffs are new, but the quality of education is stay in poor level.
These poor pictures of our current education condition worries me that our next generation would not be able to build our country and reach the same level with other generation from other countries.
I just wish that the Government acts right to make an education policy that supports more access for the poor to better education so we can build a great nation in the future that is ready for the next higher challenge and competing with other countries. Those poor people have the same rights with the other rich people to have the same level of education and the same access to any education sources.

THE PRESIDENT & HIS MINISTERS

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s decision on the new ministers at his new cabinet will affect the systems in Indonesia. Our country has more ministries than almost any other major country in the world and the numbers of ministries are often used as a political tool to reward other members of the coalition.
Before the election, we knew that so many parties supported SBY as the next president. And when the results came out that SBY won most of the votes, suddenly those parties open their “masks” and demanded to be placed at certain position in the cabinet.
Funny thing is that SBY somehow fulfills the demand by searching for the ministers from the parties instead of taking the right people with the best capabilities for the positions. And if it continues for the next five years, I am sure it will affect our country itself to the state of failure and will cost SBY to be the most “unwanted” high profile in this country.
My hope is high that SBY’s chosen ministers at his new cabinet are the talented people at their fields who will contribute their best for this county and work as well to bring Indonesia to the next level.

INFRASTRUCTURE

Sumatra, especially Riau, is very important for Indonesia. I know that some ports in Sumatra are the busiest in the country as so many foreign stuffs mostly come into Indonesia through the ports there. Talking about the poor infrastructure occurs in Riau, I must say that it occurs everywhere in this country.
Every place in this country is potential enough to be money suppliers for the cities themselves and the country. But the poor facilities, the lack of infrastructure and the less-educated human resources have caused the fortune to stop at its place just like what happens these days. Why the Government can’t see these troubles and try to fix them so every province in the country could live on their own without depending so much on the central Government in Jakarta.
The autonomy in those provinces can’t work at its best because it is used by some people to corrupt more. But if the Government has its initiative to increase the quality if infrastructure based on the specialty of each province, I am sure Indonesia will be more than just a big country by size, but also becomes the rich country by its productions and facilities.