Mobile laboratory to boost science awareness
P.C. Naommy Jakarta
The government has launched the country's first mobile science laboratory on Thursday, in conjunction with the opening of the second Indonesian Science Festival, to raise the level of scientific learning.
The prototype was designed in a 2002 interdisciplinary project involving faculty and students of the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB). The lab was completed the following year at a production cost of about Rp 600 million (US$64,516), with a maximum capacity of 40 students.
Data from the Ministry of National Education shows that about one-third of the 8,558 state high schools across Indonesia do not have laboratory facilities for conducting science experiments, especially those schools in remote areas.
Maria Widiani, an official at the ministry's Directorate General of Public Intermediate Education, said the figure does not include Islamic high schools and other institutes with poor lab facilities.
"We currently have only one prototype mobile laboratory. We hope that with this road show, all municipalities will be encouraged to provide at least one mobile lab to serve schools that can't afford expensive laboratory equipment," she said.
Director General of Elementary and Intermediate Education Indra Djati Sidi said of the 400 municipalities in the country, about 200 were located in remote rural areas.
"We have yet to set our production target, but at least 25 percent of the municipalities in rural areas should have this facility," said Indra.
Indra added that instead of instructing municipal administrations to buy the mobile lab, the road show would explain the direct benefits of the facility. The road show will also include teachers training workshops and school visits.
The festival's head of education, Handikin, said the mobile lab had visited Subang and Indramayu in West Java for up to six weeks in 2003.
"We allocated the first two days of our road show in Subang and Indramayu toward holding training sessions for teachers, and we used the rest of the time to visit schools, at least a week for every school," he said.
The science festival will run for the next three months. It was initiated with an aim to bring science closer to students through combining education and entertainment, or edutainment, explaining how science affects our daily lives.
Hundreds of students from the elementary to high school levels will participate in several competitions during the festival, including the three-day National Astronomy Olympiad competition, which begins in Jakarta and Bandung on June 24 and is to involve 62 students from junior high and high schools.
A six-day competition, the Indonesian School Debate Championship 2004, in which 102 high school students are to compete, also starts on June 24 in Jakarta.
Meanwhile, the National Science Olympiad, to be held in August in Pekanbaru, Riau, will involve hundreds of primary and secondary school students from all over Indonesia.
The festival will close on Sept. 22.