Implementing Indonesia's English teaching system

By Iwan Jazadi

ADELAIDE (JP): There are at least two messages so far concerning the educational visions of the new Minister of National Education Yahya Muhaimin. First, he sees the need to upgrade the quality of Indonesian education so that it can match American standards, in terms of students' creativity development and reading-writing habits.

Second, he does not have any intention to establish a new curriculum policy because what is important to him is how to create an environment where students can study and develop themselves optimally. Therefore, his agenda regarding the curriculum is to reemphasize primary and secondary education curriculum concepts that have not been given proper attention by the previous governments.

This writer identified key problems of Indonesia's English teaching system at the classroom-curriculum and macro-societal levels in earlier articles.

In line with the new minister's agenda, from the perspective of the high school English curriculum, the following discusses and recommends some conceptual considerations about how a learner-centered communicative approach could be successfully implemented.

The premise of the considerations is the need to ensure that the roles of the central government curriculum guidelines, syllabuses, textbooks and the national assessment system are appropriately understood. Such an assurance implies that education stakeholders -- such as curriculum writers, textbook writers, inspectors, teachers and students -- should possess a true understanding of the principles and technicalities underlying the so-called "communicative approach" and "learner- centered approach" in the Indonesian English teaching system.

Schools and teachers, as executives of the national curriculum policy, should be entitled to a great deal of autonomy for interpreting and developing the policy in classrooms.

The 1994 national curriculum for the high school English subject clearly stipulates the principles of the learner-centered communicative approach: students are prime subjects in teaching and learning activities. All kinds of curriculum decisions, including the preparation and selection of learning materials and learning activities, student needs, interests, value systems and futures must be considered. Meanwhile, teachers play a facilitative role during the teaching and learning processes.

The Ministry of Education has been on the right track with the conceptualization of the principles of the learner-centered communicative approach. The ministry's mission now is to make sure that related education stakeholders fully understand and implement such principles. The ministry's key officers must realize that their main tasks are limited to the provision of general principles or guidelines; their role in education quality control should not go beyond this scope.

Curriculum technicalities such as the material to be taught, how the material is selected and prepared, and the methodologies to be used should ideally be under the authority of schools and teachers.

If schools and teachers are not yet capable of this responsibility, it should at least be delegated to the provincial offices of education departments, not returned to the central government. This is because first, given the country's diversity, the central government will never be able to provide details to enable a fair reflection of learner-centered principles.

Second, in provincial capitals, at least nowadays there is one public education faculty where new teachers for the province are prepared.

Also, there are many high school teachers whose rich experience and expertise has rarely been utilized. They are the people who understand better the details at the grassroots level, and at the same time understand the message of the central government.

In line with the implementation of the regional autonomy act and the planned education budget increase, the above alternatives are realistic to explore. Would the government then have to disregard and or eliminate the entire teaching program and textbooks of the 1994 national curriculum to make way for local developments?

Not necessarily. What needs to be done is to change education stakeholders' conceptual attitudes. The conceptual status of teaching programs listed in the second section of the 1994 curriculum documents and textbooks has to be shifted from "compulsory" to one of "suggested" or "sample" materials. This means that teachers may use materials only if they are relevant to their students, and they can seek their own material.

Last, with regard to the final examinations or EBTANAS, it should be noted that the 1989 education act states that "The government can evaluate the learning progress of any strata of education at a national level". The word "can" indicates that national evaluation is not necessarily as important as is generally believed. The government can establish such a measure only if they have the ability to do so.

The Ministry of Education should therefore ensure that EBTANAS is not given too much emphasis -- at least due to the poor quality of the present national testing. How can multiple choice questions adequately measure students' English reading, writing, listening and speaking skills?

The government should make clear that such testing should not place a constraint on daily teaching and learning activities.

If evaluation or assessment is important to indicate how students progress, this would be the agenda of the school, and particularly the teachers and students who are responsible for establishing any means of assessment that does not violate the principles of their learner-centered communicative approach.

Put in practice, the above principles would enable English language teaching to flourish, following its success in its original context of English as a Second Language in English speaking countries.

The writer is an English lecturer in Indonesia currently undertaking a PhD at the University of South Australia.