Science program for primary school pupils

Science program for primary school pupils

JAKARTA (JP): The Ministry of National Education with the
support of the federal government of Germany have started
introducing the Science Education Quality Improvement Project
(SEQIP) in seven provinces.

The project involves a total of 18,000 elementary schools with
2.2 million students and no less than 36,000 teachers.

"We want students in elementary schools to understand basic
science through a fun learning process,"
director general for Elementary and Secondary Education Indra
Djati Sidi said on Saturday.

The massive project, expected to end in December 2002, would
be introduced to forth and sixth grade pupils in Jakarta, Central
Java, East Java, South Sulawesi, West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) and
Irian Jaya.

The science tool kits for students and teachers complete with
handbooks were officially distributed to the provinces from the
ministry's warehouse in Ciketing, Bekasi on Saturday.

Present at the ceremony were German Ambassador to Indonesia
Gerhard Fula and SEQIP project consultant Manfred Genze.

"We really hope that by doing concrete learning, children
would learn more and begin to love science. It is impossible for
Indonesia to develop if the country lacks engineers," Ambassador
Gerhard said.

Among the tools were puzzles on animals, posters on human
digestion and the metabolic process, simple experiments on lamps,
batteries and electricity, and picture cards on different types
of food and animals.

According to SEQIP team leader Otto Hammes, a whopping 10-
million Deutsche Mark grant channeled through GTZ (Deutsche
Gesellschaft fuer Technische Zusammenarbeit) along with a 24
million DM soft loan from KfW (Kreditanstalt fuer Wiederaufbau)
have been provided to support the program which had actually
started operating since October 1996.

"The Indonesian government, however, contributed a total of Rp
16.4 billion from the state budget," Hammes added.

The system and the science kits have been tested in a
preliminary orientation project in 161 schools from April 1994 to
Sept. 1996 in five provinces, namely South Sulawesi, West Nusa
Tenggara (NTB), East Java, Jakarta and Riau.

"We conducted this project through certain quality control
methods with training for the teachers and science tutors. In the
current project, we have some 1,200 tutors," Indra Djati
explained.

The ongoing scheme would provide 18,000 science kits for
teachers, 9,000 kits for students, 9,000 cupboards, 18,000 pole
stands, 3,000 science apparatuses and 18,000 handbooks.

"It is time for pupils to learn concrete science. These kits
include several materials such as coal, crude oil and mineral
ores that will be useful to help students understand the process
of nature," Indra said.

He said the program was aimed at making teachers and students
interact more and to stimulate their analytical thinking.

"At the same time, they will learn discipline. Pupils will be
able to know the reason why electricity produces light and learn
the basic concepts of the solar system and planets.. such as the
difference between day and night.

"All of this will be done in a fun and cheerful way so they
won't end up hating science like in the previous approach.
Science is interesting and everybody can apply it in their life,"
Indra said.

The project is expected to be extended for another four years
after its completion, pending further talks, he added.

"Hopefully the project will be followed (by projects) in the
field of social science and mathematics," Indra Djati said. (edt)