Govt curriculum blamed for inferior graduates
JAKARTA (JP): Experts lamented yesterday the poor quality of the country's school graduates and blaming the malaise on the government's excessive role in the design of the curriculum and other school policies.
Syrillus Belen, a member of the Ministry of Education and Culture's Research and Development Center, told a seminar on education at Atma Jaya University here that schools and universities should be given greater autonomy as they knew best about what their community needed.
Belen suggested that Indonesia did not need a portfolio ministry for education; education affairs could be handled effectively enough by a state minister.
"The government has been the sole authority in educational affairs at the national, provincial and regency levels, while schools, universities and parent-teacher associations are only given minor roles in matters such as the provision of text books, uniforms, and school fees," he said to an audience of 30 representatives from various learning institutions.
"The ministry has paid little attention to how to improve the quality of education because it is busy dealing with numerous projects such as book supplies, uniforms, exam materials, teachers' training and transfer of positions," he said.
He cited the privately run Al Azhar Islamic Senior High School, St. Ursula Senior High School and Canisius Senior High School as examples of schools which succeeded in producing high- quality graduates because they had a greater say in the design of their curricula and other policies.
Toenggoel Siagian, the chairman of the Association of Christian Schools in Jakarta supported Belen.
"Ideally, the government should not do more than establish a general policy. Individual schools know better about their needs, about what the community and the industry wants from the education world," he said.
He criticized the curriculum currently employed in elementary and high schools for overburdening students and for emphasizing rote learning.
"It's a waste of time," Siagian said, adding that rote learning bored students. He pointed out how certain subjects such as the state ideology Pancasila, ethics and history and Indonesian were taught from elementary to senior high school, while important subjects such as English, math, biology and physics were allocated less time.
Siagian said one important thing that teachers should emphasize in class was that students should master basic skills.
"Students should acquire skills not only to learn what their teachers are teaching but also, and more importantly, students should learn how to learn," he said. (rms)