My nine year old nephew beamed with joy to return to school
after such a long holiday. He was enthusiastic to get reunited with his
classmates in their new fourth grade. I was happy for him, relief not to suffer
worrisome like my senior colleagues who have their children enrolled in school
as freshers.
This is understandable as July marks the repeated nightmarish
new student orientation, often encapsulated into an Orientation week, Welcome
Week or Freshers' Week. It is a period of time at the beginning of the academic
year at a university or other tertiary institution during which a variety of
events are held to orient and welcome new students.
The name of the period varies by country. In Indonesia it
is called Ospek in college or MOS in high school. The orientation initially is
aimed to help new students to organize their classes, acclimate to student
life, and introduce themselves to other new student. It consists of
programs and activities such as outbound, leadership training,
organizational management, and other positive activities.
Unfortunately, this noble goal has lost its significance,
replaced by primitive tradition of abuse of power, bullying and violence. The
common main aspect in OSPEK and MOS is hazing. It may consist of verbal
harassment as well as initiation leading to humiliation.
The event organizer of Ospek consists of seniors, instead of an
educational board run event. With the absence of the board, seniors tend to turn
this activity into a carnival of horror and terror. They often seek for revenge
of similar past abuse they have endured from their seniors. Ospek thus
transforms into dreadful activities for freshers. Many parents also criticized
the orientation for being economically inconvenient.
How can not they be scared? The gruesome images displayed on the
news on the Ospek negativity are enough to get us skeptical of its benefit.
Mass media continues to report inhumane activities during those orientations
that led to a few cases of death.
New students are required to go through rites of initiation
including marching, dressing up in stupid costumes, and even push-ups or
suffering physical reprimands that sometimes leads to violence and dead. It
always sparks a controversy and long debate on how misguided Ospek benefits the
students and school.
Annual tragedies resulted from such initiation rituals have led
to a clamping down on school and university initiations in recent years. Sadly,
the measure is not effective enough to promote more positive activities for
freshers.
Therefore, It is commonplace to see initiation rituals or
‘hazings’ at schools. This practices have been around as long as schools and
universities themselves. Upon entry into a school or university, freshers
undergo a series of tasks or challenges designed to foster group camaraderie.
These are often unpleasant and occasionally degrading in the extreme. New
students are forced to accept degradation and embarrassment to show their
allegiance or as proof of their fervor. As a rule, seniors can shock, excite
and intimidate the new and innocent in equal measure.
Students who do not stand out as being too loud to too
beautiful, or just attracting too much attention, they might escape being
targeted. While those who demonstrate otherwise might suffer constant bullying,
often leading to brutal punishment by older students. Reprimands can involve
extreme forms of hazing, sometimes down-right cruel, such as being forced to
eat mud to receive physical blows.
This is without a doubt a big irony! Orientation should aim as a
bridge for character building. It is not an activity filled with non sense
craps and degrading treatment.
Worse, the concept of seniority is very much reinforced. The
military style like Ospek is adopted to instill discipline so they argue albeit
its transgression of basic human rights. Several cases of dead IPDN
(School for civil servants) freshers due to brutal initiation rite is not
surprising. In Indonesia, seniority is very much embedded into local education
culture. This perpetuates itself into the working environment in
Indonesia. It is common that seniors in the office have more authority in
making decision, just because they're older.
Having said that I personally agree with the action taken by the
Education Minister and some regional heads to stop degrading OSPEK or MOS.
School and college are supposed the place to build good character. These are
places where knowledge thrives and common sense prevails. Schools are the
beacon of the enlightened minds that nurture character.
If school authorities failed to stop Ospek negativity, then
their integrity should be questioned!
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