More moral subjects 'unnecessary'

More moral subjects 'unnecessary'

JAKARTA (JP): School children already have enough subjects
touching on issues of morality and thus there is no need to
formally add yet another subject to the laden curriculum,
Minister of National Education Yahya A. Muhaimin said on Friday.

"We already have religion, civics and sports subjects. Why
should students have more subjects in school ?" Yahya told
journalists at his office here.

Yahya's remark came in response to a suggestion made by
President Abdurrahman Wahid on Tuesday that moral lessons should
be made into a separate subject in school.

Yahya maintained that it would be better to integrate such
lessons into existing subjects.

"The most crucial thing is the substance. It is better for
instance to create a positive atmosphere where teachers and
students respect each other and communicate with each other," he
said.

Yahya admitted that he had received many requests from other
ministers to put their respective areas into the curriculum.

"The Minister of Maritime Exploration and Fishery asked me to
add a subject about maritime. State Minister of the Empowerment
of Women, State Minister of Human Rights Affairs, and State
Minister of Cooperatives, Small and Medium Enterprises also asked
the same thing," he said.

Yahya said that while it is impossible to grant everybody's
wish, he would try to accommodate their requests in some way.

For human rights affairs for example, Yahya said that the
ministry has coordinated with 10 public universities in Indonesia
to establish a center of human rights affairs study.

"But to add more subjects, I'm afraid we won't do that as we
are already being criticized for putting too many subjects in the
curriculum," he said.

The Ministry has recently been criticized for leaks of the
nationwide senior high school final examinations (Ebtanas) in
several high schools in Greater Jakarta, which resulted in some
3,500 students having to retake their examinations.

Yahya has admitted that the leaks came from inside the
Ministry's Directorate General of Elementary and Secondary
Education (Dikdasmen).

Five staff members are said to be under scrutiny for
negligence in handling copies of the exam.

"They knew about the documents being missing early on but
didn't report it," Yahya said.

Another two staff members are under police investigation.(09)