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.