Teachers must assist in framing educational processes

Teachers must assist in framing educational processes

By Lucia Esti Elihami

JAKARTA (JP): During one senior high school geography
examination the students were asked to name several cities famous
for their woven cloth. Their answers startled me. A student
wrote: Palembang, Banjarmasin, Nusa Tenggara Timur and Bugis.
Another wrote: Yogyakarta, Solo Balapan, Aceh and Nusa Tenggara
Barat.

If the students had answered with the wrong cities it would
not have really mattered, but the inclusion of Bugis, Solo
Balapan, Aceh, Nusa Tenggara Timur and Nusa Tenggara Barat on the
answer sheets was saddening. Bugis is the name of an ethnic group
in Sulawesi. Solo Balapan is the railway station in the Central
Java town of Surakarta. Aceh, Nusa Tenggara Timur and Nusa
Tenggara Barat are provinces.

The answers which showed a confusion between cities and
provinces were overwhelming. Why did the students fail to master
basic information? These same geography students are expected to
understand things like remote sensing, computerized geographical
information systems, and other complicated terminologies and
concepts.

The education ministry enthusiastically introduces new
geographical technologies and inventions to the curriculum, but
is it realistic to introduce them when most Indonesian high
school students cannot differentiate between Indonesian cities
and provinces?

The case is much worse in the basics subjects of mathematics,
physics, chemistry and English. Recently an English teacher
friend complained about her third year senior high school class
who were to sit their final examination in several months time.
When asked to translate a simple sentence, for example, "Kemarin
ia pergi ke rumah sakit" (Yesterday he went to the hospital), a
student wrote "He yesterday did came hostel". A great number of
the students cannot even perform simple tasks assigned by the
teacher.

The English teacher works at a private senior high school on
the outskirts of Yogyakarta. Most of the students are below
average students and come from underprivileged families.

The simple English sentences are supposedly already mastered
in junior high school. So when a senior high school student
cannot construct such a simple sentence, there might be something
wrong with our educational system.

Education is controlled by the government. Education is
therefore never independent of politics and other external
forces. The problem is that the decision makers at the Ministry
of Education sometimes gain their position not through expertise
but because of political connections.

Many decisions reflect a gap between the experience of the
decision makers and the experience of the educationists. Existing
educational policies reveal the adoption of standardized
international educational formulas that are wrongly assumed to
fit all situations. Take, for example, the obligatory preparation
of lesson plans by teachers.

Before entering the classroom, every teacher is expected to
prepare a written lesson plan for each lesson unit. The lesson
plan contains an elaborate step by step progression for the
lesson. In the plan teachers are forced to think about the
general and specific instructional objectives outlined by the
curriculum, the methods and techniques they will use to achieve
these objectives, and the resources as well as the steps she will
take to ensure the attainment of those instructional objectives.

This policy is good to a certain degree as it encourages
teachers to systematically prepare their lessons. It is not
appropriate for Indonesian teachers, however. They already have a
lot of work to do.

Most teachers in Indonesia teach classes of 30 to 40 students.
The shortage of teachers may sometimes compel a teacher to teach
many classes. Many teachers are burdened by the obligation to
teach more than 30 hours a week. Grading students' exam papers or
homework poses a big problem for Indonesian teachers.

The teachers' poor pay also makes the lesson plans
inappropriate. Many teachers are forced to work outside of
school. After exhausting themselves with the everyday struggle to
earn money, teachers have no strength or time left to prepare the
lesson plans.

Most Indonesian teachers seldom prepare a lesson plan
seriously. Many just get one from a friend who teaches the same
subjects or copy the previous year's plan.

The government wants to accelerate development and
modernization through education. It understandably introduces
technology in the national curriculum. This may result in a
situation where students are flooded with materials that are
above their realm of experience. It also burdens the teachers
with ever increasing teaching materials and responsibilities,
without a corresponding reward.

This will only frustrate both the teachers and the students.
For the students it is as if they were forced run without ever
learning to walk. The teachers know that the students and they
themselves are not ready to learn advanced science and technology
at the speed suggested by the government.

It is nearly impossible to catch up with science and
technology, it is harder to keep pace with it. Equipping students
with the necessary means to master science and technology would
be more appropriate. They could then create science and
technology appropriate to their needs and the needs of society.

It is time to return education to its proper place, that is,
among the people themselves and not at the desks of the
educational decision makers. It is necessary to involve the
teachers, the students and the whole society in designing the
educational processes. Only by this can we be sure that education
will meet the actual needs of the students, the teachers and
society.

The writer is a teacher and social worker at the Dynamics of
the Basic Education Foundation, Yogyakarta.