Teachers need more preparation for new curriculum

Teachers need more preparation for new curriculum

Debbie A. Lubis, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Education experts have urged the government to improve teachers'
skills before implementing the new, competence-based curriculum
as it requires a democratic, open-to-discussion and adventurous
learning atmosphere in school.

The government is planning to adopt the competence-based
curriculum in 2004, replacing the previous 1994 curriculum which
is considered too authoritarian and centralized.

The new curriculum is designed to offer more power to schools,
especially to teachers, to design their own lesson plans so that
they accord with the competencies needed by students in each
subject based upon local conditions.

Arief Rachman, an education expert, said on Wednesday that
teachers in the country were still affected by financial and
personal problems, preventing them from teaching in a pleasant
and comprehensible fashion.

"They need intensive training not only in skills but in
attitudes, such as creativity, encouraging initiative, and
creating democracy in the classroom, because it's just like a
book that becomes "good" when the writer conveys his message
clearly in a pleasant way," he told The Jakarta Post.

Arief, who is also the headmaster of Lab School, Jakarta, said
that the teacher should guide students in learning about
democracy by letting them decide the chapters to be studied and
allowing them to share the results of their group discussions
with their peers.

He predicted, however, that only ten percent of teachers in
the country understood the new curriculum.

Sharing his view, Mohammad Surya, chairman of the Association
of Indonesian Teachers (PGRI), suggested that the government
improve teachers' proficiency through experience-based training
that gave teachers more opportunities to work with and improve
the curriculum, using their own skills, knowledge and experience.

"Most of the training is concept-based. If the government does
not hold any discussions with teachers, I'm pessimistic about the
new curriculum being successfully implemented," he told the Post.

Surya said that teachers in coastal areas did not need to
teach students about how to cultivate certain agricultural plants
but they had to teach their students about fishing through the
relevant subjects in school.

Meanwhile Siskandar, chairman of the Curriculum Center at the
Ministry of National Education, said he met some teachers on
Wednesday from schools where mini-curriculum pilot projects were
being carried out .

"Some of the teachers have faced technical problems with the
new curriculum so we promised to give them more technical
assistance through in-service training and providing indicators
for learning achievement," he told the Post.

Mathematics teachers in elementary schools could measure
students' competence by asking them to calculate the school
yard's width, Siskandar said.

The pilot mini-curriculum projects have been underway for the
last six months in 15 elementary and 15 junior high schools in
Jakarta, Tangerang in Banten, Bandung in West Java, Yogyakarta,
and Sidoarjo in East Java.

Siskandar said that the project would be expanded to senior
high schools starting next month.