TRILINGUAL SCHOOL EMPHASIZES CONFUCIAN MORAL VALUES

Eight-year-old Aqilah Budiqinthara loves to make video calls to her grandparents, especially during the coronavirus pandemic.

The love and respect the young Indonesian has shown them have touched the hearts of her parents.

Her father, Joko Budiarto, said, "She asks her grandparents what they have eaten for lunch and also helps us with cleaning and household affairs."

Aqilah's character has been molded by Pahoa School. The second-grade pupil recently joined thousands of students to celebrate the school's 120th anniversary, a year after it switched to online teaching because of the pandemic.

Situated in Gading Serpong township on the western perimeter of Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, Pahoa School is the relaunch of an institution with the same name that was established in March 1901 in Batavia, the Dutch name for Jakarta. It was the first Chinese school in Indonesia to use Mandarin as the medium of instruction, instead of Chinese dialects, and its students come from different ethnic and religious backgrounds.

Relaunched in 2008, the school teaches Mandarin and English as second and third languages, after Indonesian.

Suryono Limputra, an alumnus of Pahoa High School and a key figure in the relaunch said, "Pahoa cherishes the teaching of Mandarin, English and Confucian values."

The school was reborn 42 years after it was disbanded in 1966 by the anti-communist New Order regime in Indonesia, which later turned it into a state school.

Limputra, who obtained a master's in power engineering from Tianjin University in China under a full scholarship program, said Pahoa College Indonesia functions as a Mandarin teachers' training college, as Indonesia badly needs qualified Mandarin teachers.

In addition to the Mandarin faculty, it has three others: international trade and finance; tourism; and Mandarin language for commerce.

Its strong emphasis on Confucian moral values, passed down from its founding fathers 120 years ago, makes the school special.

The founding fathers were educated, prominent reformist Chinese figures, who in 1900 launched a foundation called Tiong Hoa Hwee Koan to unite Chinese people from different groups－notably the Hokkien, Hakka and Cantonese.

One of the foundation's first missions was to renew and spread Confucian ideas and improve the local population's general knowledge.

Pahoa School was founded as a result of the Dutch colonial government building only two kinds of schools in the second half of the 19th century－for Europeans and native Indonesians. There were none for Chinese.

It was known as a trilingual school, as it taught Mandarin, English and Dutch. After Indonesia gained independence in 1945, Dutch was replaced by Indonesian.

Pahoa continues to act as a trilingual national school, teaching Mandarin, English and Indonesian at all levels of education.

It now has more than 4,000 students, ranging from nursery and kindergarten levels up to senior high school classes. The kindergarten occupies a separate building near the huge main complex.

The main building also houses Pahoa College Indonesia, where students learn Mandarin. The teachers and facilities are provided in partnership with Hebei Normal University in Shijiazhuang, capital of Hebei province. Since being established in 2015, the college has produced 70 graduates.

Consistent implementation of trilingual education, the teaching of Confucian-influenced values and other subjects have seen Pahoa repeatedly receive high recognition from local and national education authorities.

Ruling revoked

However, for Soetjipto Nagaria, the recognition and awards the school has received are not the end goal. A key figure behind the relaunch, he said, "The sole aim of Pahoa is to educate young people to be useful for society and the country."

Limputra and Nagaria graduated from the old Pahoa Senior High School in 1958. The pair and another key alumnus, Soeseno Boenarso, were named "Trio-S" by fellow alumni, as their first names start with the letter "S". The three are prominent entrepreneurs and hold supervisory posts at Pahoa School.

The institution's rebirth in 2008 followed the decision taken eight years previously by then-Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid to revoke a 1967 presidential ruling banning the public promotion of anything linked to Chinese culture, including Chinese schools. Wahid became president after the downfall in May 1998 of President Suharto's decades-long authoritarian regime.

In 2002, Wahid's successor Megawati Sokarnoputri declared Imlek－the Chinese New Year－a national holiday, putting it on par with religious holidays.

Government policies also led to other former Chinese schools across Indonesia becoming active again, including Pahoa's independent branches.

Nagaria said, "I was spurred into action, especially as my great-grandfather took an active part in the development of education."

A top official in Batavia's Chinese community, his great-grandfather played a significant role in planning and launching a higher education technology institute in Bandung, West Java, in 1920. This later became the state-owned Bandung Institute of Technology, one of Indonesia's best higher education institutions.

Nagaria founded and controls PT Summarecon Agung Tbk, a publicly listed property giant.

Large numbers of Pahoa alumni have developed successful careers as businessmen, academics, school teachers, lawyers, researchers, artists and as an army general, among others.

Meanwhile, some of the 2,000 or so Pahoa alumni in Gading Serpong have followed careers in different fields after finishing their education in Indonesia and abroad－many of them working in China.

Devid, who only has one name and is a graduate of Pahoa College Indonesia, spent two years at Hebei Normal University studying economics and international trade. Now working at a manufacturing company in Jakarta, he has found the Mandarin language skills he obtained from Pahoa College Indonesia helpful in his university studies and in his current job.

Amid growing demand in Indonesia for quality graduates, Pahoa School needs more Mandarin teachers, especially graduates from teachers' training colleges in China, for all the levels of education it provides.

Soeseno said, "Perhaps the (Indonesian) government could facilitate the process for this."

He added that the need for foreign teachers is temporary, as it is hoped that the number of qualified domestic Mandarin teachers will rise.