PC Naommy, Jakarta – Internet experts expressed concern on Monday over the lack of understanding among bureaucrats and legislators of the benefits of cyber-technology.
"It's sad and surprising to know that only a few legislators have e-mail accounts and are aware of the benefits of the Internet," said Judith MS, the chairwoman of the Indonesian Internet Kiosk Association (AWARI), on Monday.
Citing as an example, Judith said that only nine of 84 Central Java legislators had e-mail accounts.
Judith lamented the lack of awareness among officials of how information technology could lighten their workload and promote good governance in the country.
"Good implementation of e-government would minimize or even eradicate corruption and collusion at all levels of government," said Johar Alam, of Internet Data Centra Indonesia (IDC).
Johar gave examples of the processing of notarial documents in the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights. With e-government, applications could be processed through the ministry's website, eliminating the opportunity for collusion and corruption, because the computer would automatically process the application and a record would be immediately available.
Johar, however, said that the idea of e-government had drawn protests from "people who usually take advantage of the practice of collusion and corruption".
"People who feel threatened by the implementation of the online processing have even made threatening phone calls to software makers because the system has taken away their 'additional' income," said Johar.
Despite all this, Internet experts still think that the Indonesian people should become more Internet literate. To pursue that end, IT societies in Indonesia, including the Indonesian Internet Service Providers' Association (APJII), AWARI, and Telkom, have set up many programs for school-based Internet education.
A team from the National Internet Conference and Education (NICE) plans to provide Internet connections to 250,000 schools, from elementary schools to colleges throughout the country within the next two years.
This means that 50 million students will be linked to the Internet, which would outstrip the number of Internet users in other countries such as in Singapore with approximately five million users.
Telkom has also started a program called Internet Goes to School a month ago at its regional branch offices in West Java. Through this program, students and teachers can get free Internet education for three weeks at all branch offices of Telkom.
The three-week program has attracted about 900,000 participants throughout West Java province. "We are currently focussing on training students and teachers how to operate the internet and all the basic stuff related to the technology," said Suryatim Setiawan, the director of business and trade at Telkom. Suryatim said that Telkom is currently doing a feasibility study on their plan to provide schools nationwide with Internet access.
"We are still negotiating with several parties, such as producers of personal computers and the state electricity company to create a sustainable model that would work for every school," said Suryatim.