The Role of Schools in Facing the Character Crisis Among Students

            Juvenile delinquency has been widely reported in almost every region. It ranges from bullying, extortion and pregnancy out of wedlock to brawls between pupils, violence and even murder. One factor behind this deviant behaviour is external factors. The environment has a great influence on children's growth and development. This deviant behaviour shows that there is a crisis of character.

            Distance Learning, abbreviated as PJJ, which has been in force since March 2019, has changed the order of education in Indonesia considerably. One example is education management. Schools are focusing more on finding the efforts that must be made so that learning continues according to the plans that have been drawn up. Teachers carry out their duty by delivering material to pupils. All learning activities are carried out online. There is no social interaction among pupils, or between pupils and their teachers. Schools are unable to directly control how the learning process between pupils and teachers takes place.

            Law of the Republic of Indonesia No. 20 of 2003 on the National Education System, Article 1 paragraph 1, states “Education is a conscious and planned effort to create a learning atmosphere and learning process so that learners actively develop their potential to have spiritual and religious strength, self-control, personality, intelligence, noble character, and the skills needed in their lives”. It is clear that schools have an obligation to educate their pupils' character from the time they enter until they graduate. The effort schools make is to embed character values in the curriculum. But what about the present situation, with PJJ in force, where teachers cannot directly observe the social conditions of their pupils?

            PJJ activities that have lasted for months will certainly affect changes in pupils' character. Online learning helps pupils greatly in receiving knowledge from their teachers. But the purpose of learning is not only to gain cognitive knowledge but to educate children to become complete human beings. The limited learning process at present can erode character values so that pupils merely receive material from their teachers.

            Forming pupils' character is not easy. Special attention is needed in educating pupils' character, because each pupil has a different personality. The strengthening of character values in the curriculum must always be evaluated so that it can be applied in every learning process, both now and after PJJ ends. Of course, to achieve success, cooperation is needed from various parties: between the school and teachers, pupils, and also the role of pupils' parents. This is all the more so in the current situation, where pupils study from home, so that parents should be the ones who monitor their children.

            Schools play an important role in shaping students who are not only intelligent but also well-behaved, devout and ethical. It is therefore necessary to manage character education in a school. The management of character education is planned (planning), organised (organizing), implemented (actualing) and controlled (controling). Planning can be done by determining learning objectives and the strategy to be used.

            Organising is the step taken to determine, group and arrange activities in achieving a goal in line with the plan. Implementation is the realisation of the plan into concrete action to achieve the goal effectively and efficiently. Control  takes the form of evaluation, carried out so that no activity deviates from the goal.

            Each school has its own way of applying the values of character education. These range from giving sanctions to pupils who break the rules, extracurricular activities and scheduling meetings between homeroom teachers and parents, to other activities that are hoped to continue even under Distance Learning conditions. Character education management needs to be strengthened and evaluated further by schools in Indonesia in order to produce quality human resources.

Newspaper : Harian Momentum

E-paper link : https://harianmomentum.com/read/35006/harian-momentum-edisi-5-juli-2021