New curriculum to be implemented

JAKARTA (JP): The Ministry of Education and Culture says a new elementary and secondary education curriculum, an improved version of the 1994 curriculum currently in place, will be implemented at the beginning of the 1999/2000 academic year in mid-July.

After the inauguration of several officials on Wednesday, Director General of Basic and Secondary Education Indra Jati Sidi told Antara that a team was currently preparing the curriculum.

"The new curriculum is a simplification of some of the previous material, an enrichment. (It will be achieved by) adding other material, and the elimination of some material which overlaps with that contained in the higher education level.

"For instance, some material for elementary schools will be taken out because it overlaps with the curriculum for junior high schools," he said.

Indra said the new curriculum would be fully in place at the start of the 2000/2001 academic year, which was why the team would continue its work on the project until then.

Indra discounted fears that the new curriculum would burden parents. He said current textbooks would still be used because the new curriculum did not differ markedly from the old one.

He said the government had considered the range of obstacles that usually accompanied a curriculum change, including the availability of funds for the production of new textbooks, parents' readiness to buy new books, and book publishers ability to produce new books.

Indra said teachers would not need special training to put the new curriculum into practice. "There's no fundamental change ... so it's generally easy."

However, the Ministry of Education and Culture has prepared supplementary material for teachers -- to be distributed at the end of this month -- to supplement their current teaching material. For instance, there will be additional information about the 1965 aborted coup attempt by the outlawed Indonesian Communist Party (PKI).

The 1994 curriculum was launched by then minister of education and culture Wardiman Djojonegoro. It was designed to meet growing industry needs by providing skilled human resources based on a "link and match" orientation in which schools would provide basic vocational training to students entering a specific occupation.

The 1994 curriculum replaced the 1984 one, which focused on an active learning process by students facilitated by their teachers. However, the 1994 curriculum has received a barrage of criticism for being too centralistic and rigid.

Earlier in the day, Minister of Education and Culture Juwono Sudarsono installed Endro Sumarjo to replace Soedijarto as Director General of Extracurricular Activities and Sport, and I Gusti Ngurah Anom to replace Edi Sedyawati as the Director General of Culture.

Also sworn in were Haris Sukendar, who replaced Hasan Muarif Ambary as the head of the Center for the Studies of National Archaeology, Willem Uda who replaced Soeratmo as the deputy inspector general of the Ministry of Education and Culture, and Trijado who is now secretary to Endro Sumarjo's office. (swe)