Article 4

OJK moves up a gear on financial literacy

            Teachers are laypersons after all, including economics teachers. More than two years after the establishment of the Financial Services Authority (OJK), many of these teachers are still clueless about the superbody’s role in the economy.Pieter L. Maurits was not sure about the OJK’s role in society. The high school teacher from Ambon, Maluku province, was aware it existed, but could not quite place its position among other state agencies, such as Bank Indonesia (BI).

            “I know what BI does, but the OJK is still a somewhat vague concept,” he said recently.Budiyono, a teacher from Semarang, Central Java, was just as clueless as Pieter. “How does the OJK differ from Bapepam-LK [the Capital Market and Financial Institution Supervisory Agency]?” he asked.Little did Budiyono know, the Bapepam was no longer around and that its functions had been taken over by the OJK in 2013.

            These teachers are the target audience of a training forum held on July 2 to July 3 by the OJK, Education and Culture Ministry and the Economics Teachers’ Association, which aims to boost the financial literacy of teachers.The forum was attended by 70 economics teachers, who hailed from all 34 provinces across the archipelago. These teachers could pass on the knowledge to their students, so they can become more knowledgeable about the available facilities to access finance and better manage their money.

            OJK commissioner for education and consumer protection Kusumaningtuti S. Soetiono said that the superbody expected the training to eventually help boost Indonesians’ financial literacy to the same level currently reported by peers Malaysia and Singapore.“About 62 percent of our population lives in rural areas and inlands. That’s why we are coordinating with the Education and Culture Ministry to spread knowledge, but it will take more than five years to do that,” she said.

            Meanwhile, Deputy Education and Culture Minister Musliar Kasim said that the training was part of the ministry’s and OJK’s effort to prepare them to begin educating students and their fellow teachers about the OJK and existing financial services institutions.“Tenth grade students will be taught a subject on the OJK starting this year. It’s part of the new curriculum,” he said.Musliar admitted that there was unequal knowledge of financial institutions across the country. “Let’s be frank, most of us find out about insurance and banking products after we graduate from college,” he said.

            The shallow knowledge is in line with the OJK’s and World Bank’s studies’ findings that say only 20 to 30 percent of Indonesia’s total population have access to financial products or are financially literate.This was somewhat reflected on the first day of the forum, when the teachers underwent a “pre-test”, conducted to measure the teachers’ knowledge. According to the results, the best teacher only scored 77.5 out of 100, while the lowest score stood at 27.5.During a session, the teachers fell into a trap prepared by the OJK when the forum’s moderator offered them an “investment opportunity”.

            Under the “investment scheme”, teachers were offered hefty return if they were willing to deposit Rp 1 million (US$84) per person. The funds would be used to assist the reproduction of OJK books. “We still need Rp 10 billion for the books and are hoping you can fill the funding gap,” the moderator said. Hands then sprung, representing dozens of interested teachers, but they could only giggle sheepishly when they found out that they had been “duped”. At the end of the training, Wiji Purwanto, the association’s head, said that it would consider holding another training forum for its 20,686 members. “We conducted a post-test to see how they fared after two days. Four teachers got the highest score with 90. Not bad. They’re ready,” he said. ( sumber : http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/07/05/ojk-moves-a-gear-financial-literacy.html)

Opini : The Government should create more forums like this so that people can better know about ojk and function of ojk itself not only to teachers and students but for people from different circles should also give additional knowledge.