The journey from childhood to adulthood is often defined by the education a person receives. The long road that stretches from 'here' to 'there' is bound to come to several crossroads where crucial decisions are required for the future. But what happens when the road ahead is nothing but a wasteland?

In a perfect world, each person would have unlimited access to education and schools would have adequate funding and provisions from the government. For each goal accomplished, a reward would await; and no one would be left behind.

Clearly, however, it isn't a perfect world -- at least, not on this part of the globe, where public schools are constantly struggling to stay afloat and the educational system keeps failing one hopeful student after another. Jobs are scarce and the only thing many people have going for them is the hope that something will eventually turn up.

There are an estimated 4 million Indonesians between the ages of 10 and 44 who are illiterate, placing the country 95th among 175 countries surveyed in 2005 (UNESCO). And of the 78 million people up to 18 years of age, 26 million have either dropped out of school, been expelled or have never seen the inside of a classroom, according to 2006 data from the National Education Ministry.

"Have we failed the young generation? Maybe, maybe not," says Ali Nurwan, the vice principal of one of the more prestigious public schools in Jakarta. "There are dozens of reasons why our system is not working properly. Perhaps, in another, more promising, world - these children would lead totally different lives. They would all go to school and get the education they deserve. At the same time, am I absolutely sure that if they had gone to school their lives would change for the better? Unfortunately, no."

While having a degree under one's belt is no guarantee of a better life, the door is often firmly shut to job seekers who lack either the prerequisites or the connections (or both).

Yudis is a university graduate who majored in economics. His father works as a greengrocer, while his mother is a part-time domestic servant who takes in laundry. On the day of his graduation, his parents did not have time to come to the ceremony. He has been unable to find an office job and has become a Metromini driver.

"I paid for my own education by working different jobs," he says quietly from behind the wheel. "I thought that once I finished school, I could finally get to work in an office or something. Make some decent money, you know? But here I am."

His eyes appear dim under the brim of a green baseball cap. "I guess my parents were right, school is a waste of money."

A recent survey by the National Bureau of Statistics found more than 30 percent of high school graduates resort to menial jobs and illegal occupations in order to support themselves, while 12 percent of college graduates dwell in unemployment at any given time.

"Who should we blame?" asks Purwantoro, who teaches Child Development Studies at Atma Jaya University in Jakarta. "It's easy to yell at the government, but will it help create new job opportunities? Everything has to be reconstructed, from the quality of education to the morality of the educators and students. How many years is that going to take? I'll tell you how many: a whole decade and more."

Experiences such as Yudis' are part of the reason why some parents refuse to enroll their children in school, and why the students themselves often choose to drop out. What's the point?

Wakino, who works as a driver for a family in the capital, complains of his oldest son's decision not to finish his high school education. When Wakino demanded an explanation, his son replied, "Every good career opportunity has been filled by someone with a better education than what I can offer -- why bother finishing school if I'm going to get stuck with the rest of the people who never even learned how to read?"

"Public education is a very complicated issue," says Nuraini Hasan, a member of the school council at a public school in East Jakarta. "Do you know that there are schools out there which are on the brink of getting shut down each month because they can't make ends meet?"

This may be hard to believe in an age of chat rooms and digicams, but many -- if not most -- public schools outside of Jakarta can't even afford a computer. A laboratory often consists of an old microscope, a small surgical table for biology experiments and dusty glass tubes which look as though they have never been touched, much less used. In smaller regions and towns that you will never find by looking at a map, a classroom is little more than a tent under which students huddle every morning behind termite-infested desks.

Poor public school facilities contribute to a number of issues that plague the educational system, which include students' inability to access information (library), practice their knowledge (laboratory) and follow up on their own studies (bare necessities, such as notebooks, pencils and rulers).

According to the Asian-South Pacific Bureau of Adult Education and the Global Campaign for Education, Indonesia finished 10th out of 14 countries in the Asia Pacific evaluated for their educational system.

Score-wise, it achieved 42 out of 100 - or a big, fat F. Sri Lanka, a country that has endured a devastating three decades of civil war and which visiting Indonesians are quick to point out does not boast the big-building development of their homeland, still beats Indonesia on the education front with a B (Republika daily, 2005).

A survey by the Human Development Index found 60 percent of Indonesian elementary school teachers, 40 percent of middle and high school teachers and 34 percent of skill-oriented teachers are rated as incompetent to teach at a national level. In addition, 17 percent of all teachers nationwide do not have the credentials to teach their particular subjects.

The statistics are brutal, but what about the reality of things? With international schools increasing in number in recent years, Indonesia can't be that desperate - or can it?

"International schools are the top dogs in our country," responds Ali. "They are backed by a system that has been proven to work in first-world countries. Their methods of teaching follow the Western curriculum, relying on a different process of studying. We can't adopt this in our public schools because we lack the manpower as well as the funding."

Moreover, international schools don't cater to the majority of the population. Aside from the ridiculously expensive tuition, they also segregate themselves from local private or public schools. But is that all there is between good-quality and average- or poor-quality education: manpower and funding?

"We need to raise the bar higher," says Nuraini, speaking candidly in her second-floor office. "The curriculum has to be changed in a way that will accommodate the students' interest rather than force them to excel at everything."

Purwantoro disagrees. "I believe the first thing we need to do is train the educators. If we manage to get qualified teachers out there, then we may have ourselves some kind of hope. If we want to educate the next leaders of this country, we must first understand what it means to lead."

The way the system is designed, all three of the education levels -- elementary, secondary and tertiary - should prepare students to compete on a higher and more professional level. In universities, the playing field should change form and status, aiming to create a learned generation who possess enough knowledge to enter the global competition. Yet, in order to achieve such goals, everyone involved - from the National Education Ministry to curriculum administrators and parents - has to play an active role.

"Of course, it's all good on paper," notes Ali, "but, in reality, there's a huge gap between the desired status and the actual status."

"This is why education is complex, because it cuts across the board and everyone is a part of it," Purwantoro says.

"Once we have that, once we can get everybody on the same page -- or at least the majority of them - then we're good to go. The rest will fall into place."

This article was first published in The Jakarta Post on Apr 29, 2008.