Sofyan Tan

Dr. Sofyan Tan is helping his fellow Indonesians overcome the deep chasm of mutual misunderstanding and disrespect that separates citizens of Chinese descent from the indigenous majority. His model of integrated education, where children of various ethnic heritages learn together, is beginning to reduce the deep-seated discrimination that divides Indonesian society.

Ethnic conflict has become so commonplace that mere mention of it conjures up images of places all over the globe: Bosnia and Serbia, Kashmir, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, among others. Indonesia belongs on the list as well. Typically, Indonesian children of Chinese descent and those with indigenous backgrounds are raised and taught in separate communities, although they may live in close proximity to one another. Without the chance to interact, negative stereotypes and mistrust of each other lead to hostility and prejudice-- traits which, when encountered in adults, are very difficult to reverse. While most of the world addresses the results of ethnic tension-- violence and discrimination, Dr. Sofyan Tan is reaching the root of the problem by creating opportunities for children to learn in a different kind of setting.Realizing the havoc that ethnic divisiveness in Indonesia has wreaked on individual lives and the country as a whole, Sofyan is setting up integrated schools with an even mixture of Chinese and indigenous (Malay) students. He is not the first to establish integrated schools but no other school can boast of such an even ethnic balance in the student body. These schools allow children to see each other as individuals, thereby setting a new pattern of openness and friendliness toward people of different ethnicities that will carry into adulthood and the larger society.
However, Sofyan contends that maintaining ethnic integration is insignificant without two complementary features: academic quality and access for those in financial need. Because integrated schools will earn credibility only if they provide a top notch education, Sofyan started an institute in 1988 in Medan, North Sumatra, to assist the government in extending and improving the quality of education. Parents who are skeptical of integrated schools are likely to be persuaded by their academic reputation. As a case in point, when Sofyan's first school started in 1987, only 162 students enrolled but as the reputation spread, enrollment reached 1,362 in 1997. Students now travel great distances to attend the school; some even travel from Jakarta.
Central to Sofyan's idea is that integrated schools must be an accessible and attractive option to people of all backgrounds, particularly poor uneducated Indonesians of Chinese descent. Some members of this population feel safer in the insular cocoon of their Chinese community, where they speak Hokkien instead of Indonesian. Sofyan explains, "People whose education is higher are more inclined to embrace integration, while people from lower classes find it more difficult." The exorbitant tuition fees of other integrated schools have always provided a good excuse for poor ethnic Chinese not to enroll. However, Sofyan has started a school that is so affordable that disadvantaged families have no reason not to enroll their children.

The indigenous Indonesians and those of Chinese descent have never felt comfortable with each other. Suspicions among each group toward the other run deep; one has only to recall the massacres of 1965 to realize the depth of this ethnic chasm that runs through Indonesian society. Many thousands of Chinese Indonesians were massacred, some allege well over a hundred thousand, under cover of the civil strife set off by the fall of Sukarno and the attempted communist coup. Although only a boy, Dr. Sofyan vividly remembers the night during that period when the Chinese homes on either side of his were torched.The reasons for enmity are complex. Like the overseas Chinese in much of Southeast Asia, the community has worked hard, prospered and dominated the country's business. Many have felt superior to their neighbors and rejected the idea of assimilating "downward." The ethnic Chinese's control over the economy has triggered jealousy and hatred from the indigenous Indonesians. In fact, workers' demonstrations in 1994 for higher wages resulted in the attack on and destruction of the homes of ethnic Chinese and even the murder of a Chinese businessman. Not helping matters, many ethnic Chinese tend to stick tightly together, even though the ancestors of most current Chinese Indonesians came to the archipelago many generations ago. Clinging to its language and customs, the community gives the impression of being aloof and insular. For example, Chinese private businesses hardly ever hire indigenous workers. Symbolic of these suspicions are the high fences that many ethnic Chinese have built around their homes; they do not expect police protection.
Additionally, while Indonesia's education system has come far since the 1960s, when schooling was not mandatory for all children, it still has several serious flaws. First, while ethnically integrated schools do exist, they tend to be the formerly all-Chinese institutions, each with only the 10 percent non-Chinese student population set by the law as a minimum. Second, although some schools, especially Christian ones, are excellent, their high tuition fees prohibit many from enrolling. In this way a quality education is out of the question for those of lesser means, including many of Chinese descent. Third, almost no schools-- integrated or not-- incorporate programs that encourage tolerance and respect for Indonesians of different descent. The prejudice and hostility of each group toward the other is bound to perpetuate itself without a curriculum carefully designed to address these issues.

The institution Sofyan set up-- Sultan Iskandar Muda-- demonstrates how integrated education can work while simultaneously addressing many of the education system's shortcomings described above. In a peripheral district of North Sumatra's Medan City-- a district known as an enclave of Chinese descendents-- Sofyan set up a school called YPSIM (Sultan Iskandar Muda School) in 1988 for students from kindergarten up to age eighteen. The student body at YPSIM maintains a nearly fifty-fifty ratio of native Indonesians to nationals of foreign origin. In the school's first year 80 percent of students passed the national exams, but by 1997 this number had climbed to 100 percent, with these students receiving the highest final scores in their school district. Starting in primary school students study English and at a higher level Japanese is taught. The academic rigor is in keeping with Sofyan's desire to "create a high level of human work ethic here." Most YPSIM graduates continue their studies at private or government universities and some enter the work force, finding jobs easily. The school attributes its success to more than strong academics alone. Students study the curriculum fixed by the government, but in addition, many extracurricular activities are offered, including sports, dance, singing, computer labs, typing, and nature and hiking clubs that go on backpacking and wilderness trips. Such an extensive array, all taught by teachers with expertise in these areas, is unusual for Indonesian schools. Even more uncommon, the school has an organ and piano. Sofyan stresses extracurricular activities because they offer prime opportunities for students to learn to come together and work effectively with various groups. Most importantly, the Chinese and non-Chinese students get to know and respect one another through intensive experience working in teams towards common ends. The trust the students build through these activities continues after graduation; Sofyan observes that alumni of YPSIM have more courage to communicate with other ethnic groups.
To achieve his objective of making high quality integrated education affordable for all Indonesians, Sofyan has kept tuition fees very low by Medan standards, despite the fact that they do not pay off the bank loan that financed the building and startup costs. (Because the school is private, student fees cover only the daily operational needs.) However, as some students cannot even afford to pay the low fees, Sofyan has arranged for fifteen percent of children to pay even less through the "Program for Reduced School Fees." Additionally, YPSIM offers scholarships for students who continue their studies at government universities.
Sofyan's most innovative creation is a "foster parents program" that arranges for Chinese parents to pay the fees of indigenous students and indigenous parents to do the same for Chinese students. The "foster children" also receive the school uniform, school books, intensive skills training in English and computers (to enable them to be self-dependent) and the opportunity to meet with counselors and a psychologist. Every semester the foster parents receive "their" children's performance reports. They may visit the children they support and many later recruit the children to work in their offices. As Sofyan puts it, "Psychologically, this system will facilitate integration. And politically, children of Chinese ancestry will be protected if there is a social revolution à la 1965." Sponsoring parents live not only in Medan, but also in Jakarta and even America. In the 1997/98 school year, 95 children were sponsored, nearly half of whom were of Chinese descent.
Sofyan's work received major validation when the Minister of the Environment assisted in introducing the Foster Parents Program concept to other government officials and members of the Chinese business community in Jakarta. In 1994 the Minister of Science and Technology agreed to speak at the dedication of the school's new building, and at the same time became a "foster parent" himself.
Additional success came in 1997 when a group of influential Indonesians of Chinese descent, from an organization that had consistently obstructed integration efforts, asked Sofyan to help them spread the idea of integration to schools in North Sumatra. Shortly thereafter, another organization, called The Salim Group, invited Sofyan to establish an integrated school similar to YPSIM on the island of Bintan, in Riau. Despite the 1994 demonstrations against the Chinese, Sofyan feels that the relationships between native Indonesians and ethnic Chinese have generally been improving among the younger generations.

Sofyan's commitment to ethnic integration comes out of his own background and experience. Growing up in the outskirts of Medan, he spent much time with his father in the family retail shop. His father, though not a wealthy man, was one of the few Chinese Indonesians who spoke the majority language and dealt equally with all. He resisted the hatred and fears coming from both ethnic groups. When the peak of the fever came in the mid-1960s, his house was not torched.Sofyan himself attended local schools, including one of the city's best high schools, and then went on to get his medical degree. Throughout his education, he helped pay part of his fees by tutoring other students. In the process he became a skilled teacher, a talent he further honed by teaching in and helping administer several well-regarded schools. This experience in turn gave him the training (and reputation) he needed to launch his own alternative to ethnically segregated education.
Although Sofyan no longer teaches in the schools of Medan, he maintains a good relationship with them and sends them information concerning YPSIM's activities through a bulletin published every three months. He has also been given the support of the regional government to give lectures on the concept of integration as it is practiced at YPSIM.
His work, however, has not been without obstacles, as he describes: "Ethnic integration is very difficult for the ethnic Chinese community, especially in Medan, to accept. Starting from the insults, taunts, and terrorizing, to being given the label of traitor, it is a problem which has weighed heavily on me, not to mention the debt of almost 850 million rupiah, all of which have made me feel at times like I'm alone at sea with only a small boat. However, I continue to struggle optimistically with new ideas and creativity, attempting to convince others both from the private sector and the government."