Rote blamed for poor students

DENPASAR: About half of all fourth-year elementary school students in several provinces cannot write stories, a World Bank consultant said.

Antara reported that Stuart Weston was referring Monday to fourth-year students in six provinces under the Primary Education Quality Improvement Project supported by the Bank, but it did not mention the provinces.

Weston, a former school principal in Britain, blamed the condition on the widely criticized rote learning system here.

It was better for the education system to shift orientation to learning by doing instead of "learning by learning", the agency quoted him as saying.

He said funds for the project so far was used to buy audio visual equipment, but in the future funds would be used for more useful items, he said on the sidelines of a seminar on the program here.

"What they (students) need are ... stationary, books and rulers," he said.

However he said the project had been successful.

The secretary-general of Elementary and Secondary Education at the Ministry of Education and Culture, Indra Djati Sidi, also said the project had succeeded, but the agency did not elaborate.

Indra said training for teachers should continue.