Enhancing Quality of Public Debate

Jousairi Hasbullah:
The main characteristics of public debate among Indonesian politician and development observers is that lack of capacity and understanding of the need of using "evidence" based on good quality data.
Public debate dominated by form of intelectually dishonest  debate by dishonest politicians, intelectuals or observers. The debater prefer to use slogan, rhetoric rather than using evidence based on trusted data or indicators.
In the era of modern society, to assess the limitatation or the success of the policies should be based on the evidence gained from a good data quality produced by National Statistical Offices (NSOs) or by reputable research institutions.
Data produced by Statistical Offices can be used as a base of common knowledge of the social, economic and welfare characteristics. These characteristics  can be compared overtime, with other countries or between region within each country.
Unfortunately, most of the public debate -in case of Indonesia for instance avoiding to used statistical data and indicators. They prefer as I mentioned above, to use verbal language, slogan, rhetoric and even illusion. This situation exists due to the poor knowlege of the world of data. Data illiteracy. With these circumstances, all official statisticians actually face a great challenges in not only providing relevant and accurate data but also in communicating, vaccinating, and educating the nation of the important role of statistical data.
Jousairi Hasbullah
6 June 2018.