Early Moral Education For Pre-School Children

In Indonesia, an easy way to make money is by being a parking-lot guard. The one that was really irritated me, was when I saw corruptions doing by parking-lot guard. I've described this on my early post.

Corruptions in Indonesia had reached to very concern level. Not only for those powerful politicians who had been caught by KPK, Indonesian Corruption Buster Commission, for suspicion on doing corruptions. But after farther investigating, KPK move seemed to be blocked by some slippy rocks.

It often happened that the whistle-blower ended in jail, or even died, because there was no effective witness protection programs. How come, a small grade employee became billionair from his corruption works by doing it alone? It seemed impossible that his manager was not also enjoying the money.

Early Moral Education

A breakthrough had been made by KPK with the launch of children books series titled Tunas Integritas, or in English, The Buds of Integrity. The books are aimed to target for children at Play Groups, or Pre-School.

The books series are composed of six packages in which titled, Wuush, Byuur, Ungu di Mana Kamu?, Ya Ampun!, Ini, Itu?, and Hujan Warna-warni, said the Director of Education and Community Services of KPK, Dedie A. Rachim.

The book's commitment and the efforts of the creators are to eradicating corruptions in Indonesia, in which starts from small community, that is family. In the books itself is represented by the character of Kumbi Family, a dung beetle.

If beetles play a major role in making soil conditions conducive to the growth of shoots plants, the book's aim is trying to provide stimulation for all Indonesian children to grow up with the values of integrity, said Dedie.

To implement laws corruption prevention, the KPK must conduct anti-corruption education at all levels of education. Children who are currently 4-5 years old must be equipped with a weapon (moral) to fight corruption, Dedie added.

The publishing of Tunas Integritas books series are the result of collaboration among KPK and FPBA (Forum Penulis Bacaan Anak, or Children Books Author Forum). The book begins with the training and corruption workshop that was held in Bandung, by the end of 2011, followed by the authors of children books.

FPBA itself is a non-profit organization consisting of authors, illustrators, editors, designers, publishers, participants, journalists, media, and observers of children books. Since established on May 2, 2010, FPBA has the membership of more than 2000 people.

References:

Photo Credit: Dian Nafi

Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi
Kenalkan Nilai-Nilai Antikorupsi, KPK Luncurkan Buku Anak Tunas Integritas di Indonesia Book Fair 2012. (archive)

Illegal Parking-lot Guard, Easy Ways to Become Corruptors in Indonesia

Illegal parking guard.
Image is courtesy of tangselife.com.

Corruption is a disease like kleptomania. Overcoming the problem of corruption is like melting an iceberg in the Atlantic ocean. Not visible on the surface but the bottom is higher than Mt. Everest when measured from the seabed.

A complicated subject where I live in Sidoarjo, East Java, Indonesia is parking subscribing problem. Many people complain about parking subscription in Sidoarjo. It costs IDR 25,000 (US$ 1.50) per year for motorcycles. But in practice, if we parked in public places, the road or in government agencies still have to pay IDR 2,000 for parking fee.

Sidoarjo Department of Transportation claims to have been socializing the parking-lot guard. But after 5 years of my experince in the field, there is no reality. Even for Sidoarjo no.1 person (mayor), still have to pay for parking when using his private car. Department of Transportation argued that the park service users who had to fight the parking-lot guard who still remain collecting parking fee.

The information I get from a person who have a bicycle care business said that some strategic parking-lot were auctioned off by unscrupulous of the Department of Transportation. So more busy a parking-lot, the price for a ticket for one month becomes very expensive. The impact was, users should bear the cost of parking that landowners expenses. Parking-lot guards were targeted, they must deposit some millions of Rupiah from their earnings each week to the owner of a parking-lot.

I guess it is useless to eradicate the corruption that is worth billions of Rupiah, if it can not overcome the corruption that is worth only IDR 1.000 but has ancient roots and cultures. Even in the minimarket free marked parking, we still levied by a teenager parking-lot guard. With high unemployment rate, 4.76% (March 2025), population below poverty line 24.06 million, 8.57% from total population of 280 million (September 2024), in Indonesia, an easy way to make money is by being a parking-lot guard.

Update: November 3, 2025.