As we begin the New Year, we are all asking the same question: What does 2008 have in store for us? Looking at the horizon, one could say plenty.

The government has designated 2008 "Visit Indonesia Year", hoping to cash in on the growing global tourism industry. With a modest US$15 million promotional budget, the government has planned many events to attract not just foreigners, but also the burgeoning domestic tourist market.

In May, Indonesia will mark the centenary of what is officially called National Awakening Day. This recognises the founding of Boedi Oetomo on May 22, 1908, as the beginning if the first indigenous organization to have a a true vision of Indonesia. That movement, consisting largely of medical students, encouraged the formation of other nationalist organizations to challenge the Dutch colonial government of the time. They snowballed into a common struggle for freedom that culminated with the Independence Proclamation on August 17, 1945. It was a milestone in the modern history of Indonesia and is worthy of a big celebration.

Less conspicuous but an important moment for The Jakarta Post, is our Silver Jubilee celebrations. We intend to keep our anniversary low-profile, instead pushing to the forefront of the national agenda what we consider to be the most important and pressing challenge Indonesia needs to tackle: Education.

Our founding fathers laid out the vision that for Indonesia to advance as an independent nation, we have to strengthen and promote education. In the Preamble to the 1945 Constitution, they wrote that one of the tasks of the state is "to enlighten the life of the nation".

Nearly 63 years after we declared our independence, the vision of "an enlightened nation" through education has not become a reality. It remains as illusive as the other main goals of independence like justice and prosperity.

Where exactly do we stand in terms of our education? Compared with our situation 63 years ago, we can take pride in the fact that many more people are now going to school and that many more people go on to complete tertiary education.

But these statistics belie a deeper problem: More than two-thirds of our workforce have only a primary school diploma, creating a large pool of unskilled laborers that are neither helpful for the advancement of the country, nor for their own prosperity. The numbers of Indonesian college graduates, not to mention PhDs, are still meager compared to our needs.

This creates an anomaly whereby we have a surplus of unskilled or semi-skilled workers, but a shortage of managers, intellectuals, and most of all, leaders.

A better measure is to compare the performance our education with that of other countries in the region, most of which became independent much later than we did. In the 2007 UNDP Human Development Index, Indonesia ranked 107th, below Singapore (25), Korea (26), Malaysia (63), Thailand (78), China (81), the Philippines (90) and Vietnam (105). Education is very much part of the calculations of the index, and this is where Indonesia, in spite of a head start in independence, trails behind these countries.

The sorry state of our education raises serious questions about whether the nation is truly free and independent. It certainly makes Indonesia vulnerable to the new forms of tyranny and suppression of the modern era.

Rather than lamenting the sorry state of our education, it is not too late for the nation to act and remedy this situation. This much we owe to our founding fathers, who already paid with their blood, sweat and tears to secure our freedom.

The Jakarta Post feels very strongly about the need for this issue to take center position on the national agenda, especially in view of our celebrations of National Awakening Day in May.

Therefore, we are dedicating our Silver Jubilee celebrations this year to the promotion of the education sector. Besides publishing articles to underline the challenges and the search for solutions, we also plan to organize a major seminar in May on the relationship between education and nation building.

In our limited way, The Jakarta Post will help to promote the teaching of English, the language of a global world, at schools through the launching of the Youthspeak tabloid. We hope that this not-for-profit Newspaper in Education program will receive corporate sponsorship through CSR programs. We will also be organizing an English literary festival during the year.

The 25th anniversary logo, with the caption "Essential Reading for the Future" was designed with this concern in mind. This logo will appear throughout the year to remind us of our commitment to education.

We wish to use this opportunity to appeal to our loyal readers, advertisers and other stakeholders in the newspaper to join in our endeavor, individually or with us, to help bring about a greater national awareness of the need to address the challenges Indonesia faces in education and in nation building.

Let's jointly declare 2008 the Year of Education for Indonesia.