SIS believes in diversity among students
SIS believes in diversity among students
The Jakarta Post
Jakarta
The six-year-old blonde girl said school was a place where she
could learn and meet new friends, especially those from different
backgrounds and nationalities.
"I have no difficulty coping at school," said Setia, half-
Dutch and half-Indonesian, talking about the Singaporean
International School (SIS).
Diversity is the theme of the school, whose walls are
decorated with student paintings.
A poster of different traditional Indonesian clothing hangs on
one of the poles in the corridor, some classrooms are decorated
with red Chinese paper lanterns, while hanging in the
multifunction hall are student copies of old European paintings.
The school has students from 35 different nationalities and
according to the school's marketing and parent relations
director, Peter Konings, the school embraces the differences in
its students by modifying the school's Singapore curriculum to
fit into this rich diversity.
Peter said Singaporeans, Indonesians, Koreans, Japanese and
Malaysians made up the bulk of students.
"We also have a lot of mixed blood children, Australians,
Americans, Canadians, Romanians and Cubans," he told The Jakarta
Post in a recent interview at his office on the Bona Vista campus
in Lebak Bulus, South Jakarta.
SIS, which also has campuses in Kelapa Gading and Pantai Indah
Kapuk, both in East Jakarta, was originally established in 1997
in Pluit, also in East Jakarta.
The school was established to cater to the needs of
Singaporean expatriates.
After the monetary crisis struck in 1997, the school was moved
to Gandaria, South Jakarta, in 1998 and students from different
nationalities began enrolling.
Konings said there had never been any racial tension at the
school, thanks to its curriculum and policies, including the one
that requires all students to communicate in English.
"This will avoid grouping and ensure that everyone mingles and
gets to know each other. That is also why our social studies does
not focus on one particular country. Students are taught about,
for example, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines," he said.
The school takes a similar approach to religion, teaching
students the history and practices of all religions.
"We're not focusing on one particular religion .... We believe
that the role of religious education is in the parents' hands,
not the school," Konings said.
Teachers at the school are also trained to be open-minded. The
school's teachers, a mixture of Asians and Westerners, go through
a three-month training course on Indonesian culture.
"That enables them to adapt and understand the children of
long-term expatriates who have already adapted or need to adapt
to Indonesian culture," he said. (005)