Govt out to revise unpopular 1997 school curriculum

JAKARTA (JP): The government has set up a team to revise the 1994 curriculum for elementary and junior high schools, widely criticized for overburdening students and their teachers.

Minister of Education and Culture Juwono Sudarsono said here yesterday the team was expected to be able to finish its task within a year to allow an amended curriculum to be introduced in the 2000-2001 academic year.

Antara news agency reported Juwono acknowledged the current curriculum for elementary, junior and senior high schools was burdensome for students and faculty and needed to be reviewed immediately.

He added that many elementary and junior high school teachers experienced difficulties in applying the curriculum because they did not have the necessary training.

The government will therefore require elementary school teachers to have at least a D-2 diploma certification, junior high school teachers to have D-3 diploma certification and senior high school teachers to be S-1 university graduates, he said.

Education experts and observers have frequently criticized the curriculum overly demanding and only suitable for academically outstanding students.

Antara reported educators said a number of disciplines such as math, physics and chemistry were considered to involve too many class hours even though some materials overlapped.

Juwono also announced yesterday the government had frozen an indoctrination course in the Pancasila state ideology for new university students, pending the decision of BP7, the agency in charge of the dissemination of Pancasila, on whether to discontinue the program. (rms)