Ministry sets elementary math texbooks for all schools

Sari P. Setiogi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government is requiring all elementary schools across the country to use mathematics textbooks that have been pre-selected by the education ministry, saying the quality of national education must be standardized.

Indra Djati Sidi, Director General for Elementary and Intermediate Education at the Ministry of National Education, told reporters here on Wednesday that a set of textbooks had been chosen by the ministry from 28 textbook sets submitted for screening. The screening also included experts from the University of Indonesia (UI), the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) and the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI).

One set of textbooks consists of six to 12 books for elementary-level education, and will be published by eight different publishers.

He said the books met the criteria for elementary education in terms of material, presentation, language, readability and graphics.

He did not spell out the standard criteria for elementary- level mathematics textbooks.

Indra said schools could decide which books from the set they wanted to use, but schools that did not choose from the eight required textbooks would be sanctioned. He did not go into details.

It was not made clear whether the elementary schools -- of which there are almost 150,000 nationwide -- would be given a chance to peruse the textbooks before making their selection.

The books, said Indra, would be distributed free of charge to elementary students, with priority given to underprivileged students. There are currently 30 million elementary school students across the country.

Indra said his office would standardize more subjects next year.

"This year, we could only standardize mathematics textbooks, due to the limited budget," he said. The government has allocated Rp 150 billion for the project.

In 1999, the Directorate of Elementary and Intermediate Education, also under Indra, screened and passed one set of English textbooks for junior high schools.

The books, printed using loans from the World Bank, were later found to contain fundamental errors, which prompted the government to withdraw them from schools.

The cost of withdrawing the English textbooks were provided by the World Bank, as a separate expenditure from the initial loans.

Indra said the screening process involved independent and professional mathematics experts from both state and private universities as well as individuals.

He said books that failed the screening process were lacking in concept, relevance between graphics and text and readability.

The screening evaluates textbooks according to the following criteria: 40 percent for substance, 30 percent for presentation and learning methods, 15 percent for readability and 15 percent for graphics.