Indonesia's schools should target higher standards

Indonesia's schools should target higher standards

Simon Marcus Gower, Executive Principal, High/Scope Indonesia,
Jakarta

A strange experience may be had in Jakarta at present. It may
even be described as an Indonesian phenomenon as it would rarely,
if ever, be seen in many other countries. Schools across the
capital promote themselves on the basis that they follow foreign
curricula. In effect, it seems that they are keen to exhibit the
fact that they are providing a program and implementing a system
of education that is, in fact, quite alien to Indonesia.

The promotion of schools on the basis of their use of foreign
curricula may be understandable in the context of frustrations
with the existing Indonesian curricula, but does this kind of
frustration necessarily allow us to condone a straightforward
rejection of the national curriculum? Can it really be right that
an Indonesian school, educating Indonesian students, can and will
so willfully turn its back on the Indonesian schooling system?

It is usually Singaporean or Australian systems of education
that are being offered. It seems that Indonesia's nearest
neighbors are viewed as having school systems and curricula that
are more attractive than Indonesia's own. Schools that fall into
the category of "national plus" schools are, often, those that
seem to be turning towards other nations for the basis of their
school programs. By definition this means that those schools that
are generally seen as being amongst the elite of the Indonesian
schooling system are, in a sense, opting out of the local scene.

This kind of condition does seem, at least somewhat, sad and
disappointing. The more expensive schools of the capital, and so
those schools that are attracting the sons and daughters of
professional and well salaried people, are effectively saying
that they are no longer really providing an Indonesian education
but are instead providing a foreign education.

Undoubtedly much of the justification for such orientation
would revolve around the notion that students attending these
schools are more likely to pursue their higher educational
careers at overseas universities. Nonetheless opting out of the
local scene and adopting a foreign approach does undoubtedly run
the risk of undermining an important, if not essential, quality
of schools and schooling; namely that schools have a social role
to play and, in a very real sense, successful education in our
twenty-first century is fundamentally a social activity.
Increasingly all learning will, and probably has to, be viewed as
social in context and significance.

Where then does this leave the notion of schools that will
adopt and implement a foreign system of education? Increasingly,
successful schools are those that recognize their social
significance. Increasingly, schools that recognize that they are
a living, social system/ organization are those schools that have
the most to contribute to their wider society -- and that wider
society is the city and/ or nation in which they are active.

It has to be questioned whether a school that simply
transplants another system and/ or curricula from another
country, that may have a quite different social set-up, can
really be seen as existing as a "social organization" or an
educational institute that values its social significance.

Undoubtedly, key among the motives for implementing foreign
curricula is the notion that these curricula are academically
more sound and valid to students of the early twenty-first
century that must respond to and adapt with the changing and
challenging times of globalization. It may indeed be fair to
suppose that the education systems of developed countries such as
Australia and Singapore may be superior to that of a developing
country such as Indonesia. But the sense of isolation that
students may feel in following a foreign program of study here in
Indonesia may be difficult to overcome.

They will inevitably be isolated from the vast majority of
other schools and school students within Indonesia as they are,
after all, only a small and quite select few within the whole
scheme of Indonesian education. But they may also be isolated
from that group which they would be aiming to join.

A high school graduate from an Indonesian school who went on
to an Australian college, for example, would probably be viewed
with some skepticism should he claim that he got an Australian
education in Indonesia. It would, quite simply, understandably be
viewed as a little odd that an Indonesian person, resident in
Indonesia, did not get an Indonesian education and the veracity
of his apparent "Australian education" would be likely to be
questioned.

Also, given the changing nature of the way we learn, the
validity of simply adopting apparently more academically rigorous
curricula may be dubious. It is a reality of our times that
schools no longer hold a monopoly on information for children.
Children may learn in such a huge variety of ways and from such a
huge variety of mediums that schools are no longer the sole
arbiters of what students will learn. From books and magazines to
television and the Internet, today's generation of school
students is far more information orientated than previous
generations.

Employers, and potential economic prosperity too, will more
and more be orientated towards valuing listening and
communication skills, and towards the ability to co-operate and
collaborate with the use of critical thinking skills to work in
environments that are increasingly interdependent, dynamic and
diverse. In this sense learning as a social skill and education
and schools as a social entity has heightened significance.

Indonesian schools, and the Indonesian education system,
should be seeking out their own higher standards and cultivating
the social value of what they are providing for their wider
community. The temptations to effectively "sell-out" and utilize
other systems from other nations is great and quite
understandable but should it really be seen as the way to
proceed?

With a greater sense of self-worth, respect and confidence in
what educators are doing, it must surely be possible for people
to acknowledge the value and legitimacy of having an Indonesian
education in Indonesia. Education and the school experience is
one of the most formative, valuable and vital aspects of people's
lives.

If an Indonesian school simply contracts this educational
obligation out to, or tries to adopt, a foreign system, it is
possible to read an underlying message that the Indonesian
experience is not valued. Education has a critical social role to
play and if schools may be seen to undermine this social role by
adopting foreign ways and means then a genuinely regrettable
condition may have been reached.