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.