Push quality in textbooks: Experts
Push quality in textbooks: Experts
Sari P. Setiogi, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta
Book publishers and educators agreed on Wednesday that the recent
regulation that required textbooks to be used for at least five
years was not feasible.
"Having the same textbook for five years might work for
science, but definitely not for social sciences, which change
rapidly day by day and the knowledge of the students might be
limited," said chairman of the Indonesian Publishers Association
(Ikapi), Makfudin Wirya Atmaja.
Meanwhile, education expert Ki Supriyoko said that the real
issue was producing quality textbooks, not procuring textbooks
every five years.
"Rather than regulating how many years textbooks will be used
for in schools, the government should focus on producing quality
textbooks," Ki said.
Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Alwi Shihab
announced earlier a decision to keep school textbooks for at
least five years to avoid the possible commercialization of book
procurement.
The government usually names several textbooks considered to
be of good quality, both in terms of content and presentation.
Anticorruption activists have suggested that the selection
process is riddled with corruption and collusion resulting in
frequent changes of textbooks.
A 1988 report issued by the Asia-Pacific Cultural Center for
the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) said that most publishing companies in the
region were only interested in making money.
Ki said at the moment there were no other countries that
regulate the textbooks used in schools.
"My research in the province of South Sulawesi revealed that
among 2,000 children who had completed elementary school, about
30 children could not read well. How could they graduate from
elementary school?" said Ki.
Separately, teacher Niken Suryatmini told The Jakarta Post
that she also had problems with the poor quality of textbooks
here.
"It would be better if the government issued general
guidelines on achievement targets that should be reached by
students after a certain level," said Niken.
"What happened in South Sulawesi (Ki's survey finding) should
not happen again," she said.
At the moment, for the elementary school level, there are 12
titles of science textbooks, seven titles for mathematics and 21
titles for social sciences.
"It is confusing as we do not know which ones passed the
government's selection with the categories 'very satisfactory',
'satisfactory' and 'quite satisfactory'. Meanwhile, we know some
might only pass the selection process through bribes. It is very
possible we select the 'wrong' books," said Niken.