Assalamualaikum wr. wb.

The honorable the juries, all teachers and the audiences.

Before I begin to give a speech, I would like to invite you all to thank Allah the Almighty,
Who has given us Mercy and Blessing, so we can meet together in this blessing place.
And also let’s deliver sholawat and salam to our prophet Muhammad SAW, Who has
brought us from the darkness to the brightness, so we are always in the right path.

Ladies and gentlemen

Indonesian is a great country. It has so many natural resources that can be used. It has
so many beautiful palaces that can mesmerize people. It is so beautiful to live here
peacefully with different cultures, languages, and religions. However, why are there still
many people who live under poverty in this country? The only answer to this question is
because our human resources are still low in the term of education.

If you have ever heard about the news about our international education rank, you
would be surprised. As quoted form Education for All (EFA) Global Monitoring
Report 2011 which is published by UNESCO and launched in New York on Sunday,
1/3/2011, our international education rank is at 69th place from 129 surveyed countries
all over the world. This rank is lower than in 2010.

It opens a question that runs in my head, what happen with our education? Indonesia is
a great country with many talented young generations. It was undoubted again that
there are so many Indonesian students who win the international education Olympiads
such as mathematics, chemical, physics and other. But why our international education
rank is still low. So what happen with with our education?

Ladies and gentlemen

There must be a reason why our human resources and our global rank in education are
still low. One of the reasons is that our education is expensive. For middle up to high
class people the cost of our education is nothing. But for those who live in lower
economic class, the cost of our education is beyond their reach. Many of them even
abandon their duty to go to school just because they have to work to fulfill their needs.

Our government has made a policy recently to overcome the problem in our education.
The policy is increasing national educational budget up to 20% from APBN. This budget
later on is used to make education is reachable for low economic level society; to
improve teachers’ quality with a program which well known as “sertifikasi”; and to
provide school facilities such as library, classroom, laboratory, and sport hall.

Ladies and gentlemen

We hope the policy that the government made will make our educational quality better.
Of course as a student, we don’t just sit down and relax without doing something. Good
or bad the quality of education of our country also depend us. If we want to change our
bad educational paradigm, let’s begin with improving our achievement with studying
hard for the sake of our education.

I hope this speech that I deliver today will be useful for you all. Thank you so much for
your attention. The last I say:

Wasalamualaikum Wr. Wb.