The right school

The right school

I recently received the Jakarta Post Lifestyle 1997 and want
to thank you for its release. The responsible team has certainly
scored a hit just as The Jakarta Post has generally done for the
last 14 years. Congratulations!

It is also a point in your favor, that you mention that "it
would be wise to check and confirm whether it suits your
requirements for example in the section "Finding the right
school".

But some advertisements are enough to cause a headache. For
example, one school boasts being able to do the virtual
impossible. I was flabbergasted to read that it claims to be a
"multinational school" of "international standards" providing an
"international education", delivering a "native speaker education
program", "implementing a specific international curriculum by
expat teachers", who are using their "expertise in design", using
"the same curriculum materials... as international schools" and
thereby -- believe it or not -- "applying the Indonesian
curriculum".

The billboard at the entrance of the school clearly states
that it is a National Indonesian School (Sekolah Nasional). The
somewhat different school fees are only justified by the fact the
school is a sample of new school "experiments" which are also
open to foreign students and employ several foreigners as "native
English speaker teachers". Even the use of the attribute
"bilingual" in homework material at this new private national
school is a delicate subject, because there aren't any related
government regulations yet.

So, why beat about the bush? If it is a real International
School, say it and if it is an Indonesian National School, so be
it and make it the best in any case. If not, people who are
concerned about education in this city and/or have children to
enroll could hit on the idea of digging deeper and ask for a copy
of this "specific international Indonesian curriculum" for
verification and -- who knows -- a recommendation as an example.

Name and address

known to the editor