Anxiety, optimism greets new primary curriculum ...<\/p>\n
By Ati Nurbaiti and Rita A. Widiadana<\/p>\n
This week marks the start of the new school term with the new,
\n1994 curriculum coming into practice across the country. It is
\none of the two recent efforts to improve the national educational
\nsystem. The other is the extension of the compulsory learning
\nprogram from six to nine years. The Jakarta Post talked with
\neducators, students and parents about the change in the
\nelementary level curriculum that will be applied in stages, the
\nfirst through fourth levels being the first affected by it.<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): Nanny Yoppie has high hopes for the new primary
\nschool curriculum because she is sick of watching her daughter
\nJoan study.<\/p>\n
"I hope children will be more creative, and not only
\nmemorize," she said. Almost daily her third grader blared out
\nphrases from four subjects: social studies, history, civics and
\nphysics. Starting Monday, Joan, a fourth grader, will experience
\nthe 1994 curriculum which has replaced the one applied since
\n1984.<\/p>\n
Desi, who is also in the fourth grade, says she dislikes
\nhistory, presented in a book entitled History of the National
\nStruggle.<\/p>\n
"Once our teacher had us write down a whole chapter about
\nPangeran Diponegoro from the book. We protested but our teacher
\njust said do it."<\/p>\n
Another parent, Sutrisna, didn't know about the new curriculum
\naffecting the first and fourth graders this year and, by 1996,
\nall elementary students to grade six.<\/p>\n
"The important thing is that schools should not keep drawing
\nall those fees," said Sutrisna, a taxi driver, expressing a
\nwidespread complaint by parents.<\/p>\n
Others have also voiced ignorance of the new curriculum.
\n"Maybe the teacher will tell us on the first day of school, I
\nwasn't told anything when I picked up last semester's report,"
\nsaid another parent, Lilis.<\/p>\n
The new curriculum, completed in 1992, tries to respond to
\ncriticism of the education system; that classes are monotonous,
\nfor example, and that students lack basic skills.<\/p>\n
For the elementary curriculum, the dreaded history has now
\nbeen blended into social studies and civics.<\/p>\n
Indonesian language has been allotted two more hours per week,
\nto give more time to writing skills, better communication and,
\nhopefully, literary appreciation.<\/p>\n
Compared to the rigid guidelines in the 1984 curriculum, the
\nteachers have been given free reign, meaning that any method goes
\nwith no time targets for particular items in each subject.<\/p>\n
Also important is that the aim of the new elementary
\ncurriculum is to ensure that children understand basic subjects,
\nparticularly reading, writing and arithmetic.<\/p>\n
According to Zainal Arifin Achmady, Director General of Basic
\nand Middle Education, the 1990 national census was among the
\nfactors leading to this change.<\/p>\n
The census revealed that Indonesian is used as a colloquial
\nlanguage by only 15 percent of the population. This, he said in
\nan address to the National Teachers Association Congress earlier
\nthis month, is reflected in children's poor ability to read and
\nwrite, while "...homework is mostly maths and natural sciences,
\nand much less reading or writing."<\/p>\n
Optimistic<\/p>\n
Some teachers voiced anxiety, but others were quite optimistic
\nabout the change.<\/p>\n
"We're very happy, although we're just going to attend our
\nfirst training on Monday," said Endang Purwasih last Saturday.<\/p>\n
"I've read a little of the guidelines, and I feel it will be
\nmuch easier," the grade 1 teacher at the Cibubur state school
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
She is particularly glad that stress on basic arithmetic
\nrather than mathematics has come back. A subject of debate
\nbetween educators for several years, supporters of mathematics
\nsuch as Andi Hakim Nasution, former rector of the Bogor Institute
\nof Agriculture, said it was needed to instill logic. Meanwhile
\nparents complained children could not add up while shopping.<\/p>\n
"Parents always have difficulty in helping with maths
\nhomework," Endang added.<\/p>\n
Angga Dama Nirmala, a former fourth grader, also felt that
\nmaths was difficult, though luckily she is a bright student. Work
\nin Indonesian lessons, she continued, is mostly filling in blanks
\nwith the answers provided in the text book.<\/p>\n
"I hate writing stories," said Angga of the Harsia private
\nschool in West Bekasi. "I like sports and handicraft because we
\nget to go outside. Sometimes we sketch outside too, when the
\nteacher tells us to draw houses or trees."<\/p>\n
With the new curriculum, children will find learning more fun,
\n"provided teachers are more active and creative," Endang said.<\/p>\n
But precisely because most teachers are the opposite, the new
\ncurriculum has already drawn various criticisms, since it was
\nannounced last February under former Minister of Education and
\nCulture Fuad Hassan.<\/p>\n
Dictated<\/p>\n
In response to critics, Harsja Bachtiar, former head of the
\nMinistry's research and development center and an aide to the
\ncurrent Minister, Wardiman Djojonegoro, said "we will never begin
\nif we keep asking whether or not the schools are ready."<\/p>\n
The anxious teachers say they are not.<\/p>\n
"We have become used to being dictated to (by the former rigid
\nteaching guidelines)," said a fourth grade teacher in Bekasi,
\nwho attended special courses about the new curriculum at the
\nMinistry.<\/p>\n
"I'm still confused and I have to apply it this week," Mrs.
\nSuwito said. Teachers, she adds, only teach students the answers
\nin key books in most subjects.<\/p>\n
The new "Teaching Program Guidelines" require teachers to use
\nmore initiative and every source available, including the print
\nand electronic media.<\/p>\n
The guidelines are much shorter than the old ones but, as the
\nconfused teacher said, in no way simpler.<\/p>\n
"The shorter a curriculum is, the higher quality of teacher
\nrequired," says Tunggul Siagian, the manager of the 21-year old
\nPSKD Christian school group in Jakarta.<\/p>\n
Observers say this means that only children of a few quality
\nschools will benefit from the need for increased initiative from
\nteachers.<\/p>\n
Suwawan, a teacher in Tangerang, says "we will still look to
\nthe old curriculum guidelines." It was good, he said, because it
\nprovided a solid schedule for when certain materials must be
\ncovered. However, he acknowledged, he had to rush with history in
\nthe previous semester because, "there was so much material for so
\nlittle time."<\/p>\n
J.J. Hasibuan, a professor at the state-owned IKIP teacher's
\ncollege in Malang, Central Java, brought up the "chronic" problem
\nof scarce teaching sources.<\/p>\n
"What about schools in remote areas where teachers rarely see
\ntelevision and newspapers?" he asked.<\/p>\n
"Teachers in these areas simply do not use these media," said
\nHasibuan. He chairs a private team which is trying to further
\nsimplify the government's teaching guidelines with dialog-
\nsounding sentences.<\/p>\n
"Which teachers can understand the abstract phrases in the
\nguidelines?" he said. He pointed to the aim for teaching civics
\nand Pancasila in the guideline's introduction: "to develop and
\nconserve the high values and morals rooted in Indonesian
\nculture."<\/p>\n
A better opening, he said, would be, "You might be a teacher
\nin a remote area in Irian Jaya ...what is being a citizen like to
\nyou?"<\/p>\n
A former high ranking official at the Ministry of Education
\nand Culture pointed out that the team which prepared the new
\ncurriculum worked very hard to blend demands from the public and
\ngovernment agencies to ensure the younger generation will be of
\nbetter stock than their elders.<\/p>\n
"There were too many titipan (demands), like tax awareness,
\nfamily planning....," from various agencies said a source who
\nrequested anonymity, adding that the demands were unrealistic if
\nteachers are not well equipped.<\/p>\n
Lively<\/p>\n
Critics aside, the program comes into effect today and the
\nteachers will have to somehow manage.<\/p>\n
Lacking guidance, initiative and facilities to enable them to
\nsuddenly teach freely, children may be the teachers' greatest
\naides.<\/p>\n
As Desi cites, "Once we said, `come on teacher, let's go
\noutside' and we asked her about the plants in the schoolyard and
\nnow we know them by heart."<\/p>\n
Learning outside the classroom is rare at her school.<\/p>\n
Teacher Suwawan says lively students like Desi, often
\nconsidered naughty and too talkative, actually help teachers.
\n"Most of our students seem shy and because they don't ask us
\nanything, we don't realize our own need to look for information
\noutside of school books," he said.<\/p>",
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