Designing education for modernity

 In his provoking book The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East (2008), Kishore Mahbubani believes that billions of Asians are now marching to modernity. In the 21st century, Asia will be modernized.

 It is a just a matter of time.  As an optimistic idealist, however, Mahbubani reminds us of the seven pillars of Western modernity that we should emulate, namely the free market economy, science and technology, meritocracy, pragmatism, peace culture, law enforcement and education.

 Among the seven variables, it is education that plays the most vital role. Human capital theory stresses the importance of investment in the improvement of the workforce through training in particular and formal education in general. In other words, education is the most essential part of development en route to modernity.

 The essence of a free market economy is competition and entrepreneurship. Actually, competition is also central to the success of the politician, the professional and the intellectual. A competitive society encourages people to explore and develop their potential for individual as well as collective progress.

 A meritocracy is central to the advancement of creativity and progress in society. Connection and family-based promotion, especially in public services, is antithetical to progress. Being pragmatic simply means that no particular method is claimed to be superior over the others. In brief, it means making a series of informed decisions to be practical yet beneficial.

 Peace culture is a prerequisite for continuous development. In developing countries, progress is often disrupted by recurring conflict.

 This kind of scenario is now rare in Europe, but is still rampant in developing countries. Such conflict often causes long-lasting psychological barricades that are difficult to remove.

 The rule of law guides how people should operate in a society. Law enforcement is essential for maintaining progress. In a country where laws are not fully enforced, the fruits of development are in the hands of a small fraction of society. As a result, there is no collective ownership of development.

 Mindful of Mahbubani’s thesis of Asia’s imminent modernity, educators and teachers need to ask whether the existing curriculum is effective enough to implement the seven pillars of modernity in this country. How can those pillars be incorporated into the curriculum and implemented in daily life?

 Education teaches students science and technology, but that is not enough to develop modernity. Developing these pillars implies imparting those values to be applied in daily life. Universities are often criticized for over teaching content to students, ignoring the fact that such content shortly becomes obsolete or irrelevant.

 The corollary is that the skills to be taught to students should be transferable to ever-changing situations. Teachers and professors would have failed if they used learning processes that did not impact on life-long learning.

 Teaching for the 21st century is about providing students basic skills and values for living in a knowledge-based society.

 The four principles of a knowledge-based society are as follows. First, life-long learning. Muslims would readily agree with this principle, because it is in line with the Prophet Muhammad’s saying that man should learn from the cradle to the grave. Educators should impress upon students a genuine curiosity for learning new things throughout life.

 Second, independent learning. Students should be taught to assume greater personal responsibility for their own learning. Crucial for independent learning is critical and creative thinking skills. Critical people have tendencies to anticipate new problems and know how to cope with them.

 Third is problem-based learning. Our life is flooded with new problems. Traditional education programs are preoccupied with content, while in reality, life outside schools offers us problems rather than content. The curriculum should be redesigned to provide students with reasoning skills and problem-solving skills.

 A problem-based approach to the curriculum is also experience-based.  Learning is coach-mediated rather than teacher-directed. Students are problem solvers rather than knowledge recipients.

 Clearly, the role of teachers is not about knowledge delivery, but about collaborating with students in creating knowledge. In other words, students are treated as novice knowledge constructors.

 Fourth, learning from multiple sources and resources. Traditionally, teachers used to be a major and authoritative source of knowledge. They should realize that nowadays students learn things faster from multiple sources. These sources are infinite and beyond comparison. The main job of today’s teacher is not to provide knowledge, but to help students filter the knowledge they are exposed to.

 Educational institutions are challenged to shift the paradigm from an “application of theory model” to a problem-based model.

 The current practice is to provide prospective teachers with theory and ways of teaching through PPL or program pengalaman lapangan. Trainee teachers in most cases feel underprepared for life in the classroom.

 Normally in Indonesia, students do PPL in the eighth semester for three to four months, which is far from sufficient for fully understanding day-to-day problems in school.

 By way of comparison, in England and Japan prospective teachers undergo PPL earlier, namely in the first or second semester. As a result, they experience school culture longer and therefore know how to come to terms with school problems.

 Education is the most effective way of modernizing the nation. We need teachers who have mastered not only the subject matter (pedagogy), but also have the competence to inculcate students with the values and character to survive an ever-changing society. For that reason, teacher education programs should be critically reviewed for continuous improvement

A Chaedar Alwasilah ; 

A Professor at the Indonesian Education University (UPI), Bandung and The Author of Pokoknya Rekayasa Literasi (2012)

JAKARTA POST, 02 Maret 2013

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Curriculum 2013 and ‘the fences eating the plants’

 Officers from the state educational technical implementation unit (UPTD) together with the principals of several Bekasi subdistrict elementary schools went to Bali recently to visit its state elementary schools.

 Looking at the “title” of the activity, there seemed to be absolutely nothing wrong. Wanting to greater develop their own institutions they wanted to use the experience to learn the systems that could not be found in the Greater Jakarta area.

 However, the decision to go on this trip beggars the question; “Why go to Bali?” And perhaps more importantly, “How was a trip like this possible?” Now, if we take in to consideration the limited funds and poor facilities at state-owned schools: How could they afford the trip at all?

 Two weeks prior to the group’s departure, I was informed that our school finance officer had been asked to pay around Rp 6.5 million (US$669.4) to the local UPTD. The cash was earmarked to buy books for our library.

 Strangely, the books were sourced from one publisher and we never knew what books we were to receive or if we really needed them or not.

 Characteristically, for this country, if you want your school to be “safe” there should be no questions asked and whatever materials you need to operate a school legally in this country must be obtained through the UPTD office. Your dependence will be more if your school receives grants from the state such as the school block grant (Bantuan Operasional Sekolah, BOS).

 It has been a week since we accepted the Rp 6.5 million price tagged books. But, we have not opened the package yet and it is likely we will never.

 Some teachers have commented after looking at the package, “Did they really cost Rp 6.5 million?” There is an unspoken pain that hangs around these teachers — professionals who are underpaid despite working hard from 7 a.m. until 4 p.m. every single day.

 It must be acknowledged that small and big publishers alike have to deal with state officials and state schools or private schools and corrupt management.

 Consequently, idealist teachers or school administrators face only two choices: to swim in the turbid water or to find another school and job, if one is available.

 Welcoming the 2013 Curriculum, which is now in the socialization phase, we could assume the same “corrupt” incidents will inevitably occur more.

 While the level of dependence of schools on state officials has been reduced in the school-based curriculum (KTSP), the new one conversely requires more intervention from various other offices.

 Beside local offices, there are other institutions that will be more involved, such as the State Teachers’ Training Center (LPTK) and the State Educational Quality Control Agency (LPMP).

 One of the main problems Indonesian education faces is the quality and integrity of the teachers and school administrators, there will be excessive “transactional” affairs between them and the state educational officers or individuals working for the agencies.

 I could not imagine how the senior teachers or administrators with limited informational and computer technology will deal with the new sophisticated but naïve requirements. Behavior will likely mirror what we, unfortunately, see at the teacher certification level.

 Whereby, some, individuals try hard to pass the process and others exploit the multiple transactional shortcuts: either bribing the trainers or by paying other teachers or persons to prepare the things they need.

 Even regarding the officers themselves, more comically, it is frequently found that school supervisors, often former school principals, could not use Microsoft Power Point and would suddenly end their presentation and call time. More saddening, is the recurrence of individuals who do not understand what they are talking about.

 For school administrators, however, regardless of the degree of quality given by educational officers, they should continue to pay respect but through another kind of transaction, for example an envelope with certain amount of money every time they come. It is absolutely necessary to ease their experience whenever they deal with them.

 The “well-trained teachers” often assist (or coach) their colleagues in teaching, we therefore must be aware of another transaction that might happen.

 Beside unnecessary individual gratification, a “copy and paste” practice has mushroomed, especially, since the endorsement of school accreditation.

 However, with the difficulty of teaching administration faced by many teachers, regarding both quantity and quality, the practice is the best shortcut.

 With the greater possibility of pagar makan tanaman or the fences eating the plants — where the guardians oppositely exploit the guarded ones — we should consider implementing the 2013 Curriculum soon.

 Besides the fact that the new curriculum appears to be substantially more theological and without scientific method coherence, we should make a better choice.

  It is not about being laggards, less patriotic or unreligious regarding the curriculum innovation, but it is more than the innovation itself that will potentially make more mess.

 Likewise, we are really in need of trustful guardians who think of how better education should be instead of merely managing illegal paths to raise funds to amuse themselves in Bali.

Khairil Azhar ; 

A School Manager and A Researcher

at Paramadina Foundation, Jakarta

JAKARTA POST, 02 Maret 2013

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National curriculum 2013 Should one-size-fits-all?

Do you like wearing a one-size-fits-all shirts? If you have a “normal” size body, then you would adore such a shirt.

 But if you are relatively petite or large, you have to pass on this adorable shirt. The reason is simple, it does not fit you. So, is your body the problem?

 In the garment business, “one-size-fits-all” is a term used to describe a product that has been designed to fit average people. This un-sized approach to clothing design is to make it easy for consumers to grab something off the rack in a hurry.

 However, the term can also be used to describe a simplistic and reductive approach to a problem. This includes our recent curriculum change in schools.

 Under the previous curriculum (KTSP — school-based curriculum), teachers had to design their own syllabus after identifying the needs of their students. Curriculum prescribes the objectives, whereas syllabus describes the means to achieve them.

 Curriculum guides teachers about “what” to teach, syllabus tells “how” to teach it. This process requires teachers’ creativity and commitment.

 Some teachers might be burned out due to their heavy workload. But at least this system encourages teachers to teach what is needed for their students to work creatively. Quality work takes time.

 Unlike the previous curriculum, the newly introduced curriculum of 2013 comes in a package. In an interview, Education and Culture Minister Mohammad Nuh stated that the government would provide the curriculum in a package with its syllabus.

 This could be good news for some teachers, but maybe not for some others.

 In explaining about the new curriculum in its familiarization program, the minister analogized the curriculum to tailoring a suit. He claimed that the 2013 curriculum was a nice suit, because it was designed first prior to the tailoring. Did not the previous curricula undergo the same procedure too?

 There are at least three flawed assumptions in the new curriculum.

 First, the curriculum planners have misidentified the problem. They assume that teachers are like “dirty water in a reservoir”. The phrase was actually presented in a national meeting of the new curriculum. It is not only that the words chosen are offensive, the assumption underlying the phrase itself is also flawed.

 Teachers are positioned at the center of the educational problem, and that is why they have to be represented in an appropriate way.

 The misidentified problem is that teachers are incapable of writing a syllabus. Therefore, the panacea is the one-size-fits-all curriculum 2013 with its syllabus.

 Second, just like the one-size-fits-all shirt may not always be flattering, the syllabus made by the government may fit one school, but may also be irrelevant to others. More worryingly, some schools may get neglected when they have unique needs and issues.

 The curriculum basically assumes that all schools, facilities, teachers and students are the same, which is clearly untrue.

 Third, that teachers are not trustworthy in terms of exploring their creativity in developing the curriculum based on contextual needs and the unique demands in each region. By the assumption of curriculum 2013, teachers would be steered from a distance by using a universal remote control called syllabus.

 The teaching and learning process in schools aims to shape our students’ characters and to achieve a goal where there is no child left behind. Yet Curriculum 2013 suddenly comes out of the blue and purports to act as an instant solution.

 If these sudden changes continue, teachers and students, the core subjects of education, will instead fall victim to the errors of our national education system.

 I agree that we should not oppose change. But to strive for change, we need to make sure that the changes are for the better, not worse.

 Should one size fit all? Should we employ this one-size-fits-all approach to education? So, is your body the problem? These questions could hardly end.

 The problem is not only for curriculum planning. Winston Churchill said that “he who fails to plan is planning to fail”. But let’s hope it does not lead to that.

Zulfa Sakhiyya ;  

A Researcher at the Center for Multiculturalism,

Democracy, and Character Building, Semarang State University

JAKARTA POST, 23 Februari 2013

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The myth of teacher’s training

As a logical consequence of the newly introduced 2013 curriculum, school teachers are obliged to enroll in a 52-hour training course as mandated by the Education and Culture Ministry.

 This government-sponsored training aims primarily at the teachers’ mastery of the concepts and principles underlying the new curriculum.

 Because school teachers are assumed to have no prior knowledge of how the curriculum ought to be translated and realized in classroom settings, they are required to participate in the training, which will start in March this year. 

 We need to underline here that since it is the mastery of the concepts in the curriculum that is the eventual goal, this incoming teacher training is only theoretically motivated.

 That is, teachers are to theoretically understand the rationales behind the government’s policy on the implementation of the curriculum as well as the premises underlying the curricular designs — which differ from the previously used curricula.

 The purpose of the training is not to equip teachers with the technical know-how related to the real application of curricular contents in the classroom.

 We cannot expect teachers to gain practical knowledge about how, for example, the natural and social sciences can be extracted effectively when these subjects are merged within a single subject — Indonesian.

 The training is highly likely to present more problems than solutions and more contradictions than symmetries. In the country’s history of pedagogical paradigm shifts, it is not the first time that teacher training is sought and believed to offer a panacea to a myriad of problems faced by the country’s educational system. Teacher training — known locally as the PLPG — became the apex when teachers failed the certification program. 

 There seems to be a developing myth that training in educational activities, more precisely teacher training, can fix the educational snags and offer ready-made solutions to them.

 The current government’s move to train schoolteachers seems to perpetuate this myth.

 Amid the educational problems and challenges we encounter, we often fail to address the intricacies of the relationship between curricula, teaching materials, teachers, students and other countless related factors.

 The curriculum has often become an easy scapegoat every time problems occur. It has in other words been viewed as an educational straitjacket.  

 However, the changing nature of the above educational elements ineluctably requires a shifting orientation when we deal with the pertinent problems in our educational system and seek possible solutions to them.

 This by no means suggests that teacher training is unnecessary and of little value. We first need to admit that all educational activities are always in disarray, convoluted, discursive and beset with conflicts and contradictions.

 The implication is that we need to reconceptualize the notions of teacher training and probably teacher education as a site of contestation, conflict and struggle where diverse perspectives on pedagogical knowledge may clash.

 Like or not, this reconceptualization stands in stark contrast to the commonly-held traditional normative sense, which carries the meaning of adherence to pedagogical prescriptions (by purported pedagogical pundits and teacher trainers) as a list of do’s and don’ts, so that teachers can teach successfully.

 While in the former sense, teachers’ agencies, voices and subjectivities in knowledge participation are considered disruptive, downplayed and summarily dismissed, subjugated and even silenced, in the latter these are seen as important constructs that play a significant role in the process of knowledge construction.

 The repositioning of ideas on teacher training as well as teacher education in the frameworks of agency and subjectivity provides room for teachers to exercise their authority as intellectuals (not as conformists) who have a voice to negotiate educational policies and agendas (including the frequent shifts of curricula) imposed on them by the government.

 Thus, rather than asking teachers to uncritically conform to what has been prescribed by educational policymakers and pundits, teacher trainers and teacher educators need to take a bold step and inspire teachers to negotiate and even challenge the prescribed rules of the game by virtue of the latter’s pedagogical knowledge obtained from classroom teaching experiences.

 If we do this, then we will nip the developing myth in the bud

Setiono Sugiharto ; 

An Associate Professor at Atma Jaya Catholic University, Jakarta’; A Chief Editor of the Indonesian Journal of English Language Teaching

JAKARTA POST, 23 Februari 2013

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Curriculum for adding meaning

When anything goes wrong in society, people promptly point the finger to education. Recurring social problems such as student clashes, interethnic or interfaith conflicts, corruption and moral decadence are assumed to be indicative of failure in the education system.

 Recently, some people, including government officials, enthusiastically proposed that anticorruption, character building, sustainable development, scouting, traditional martial arts, and even soccer should be included as school subjects. In brief, people want to put anything valuable into the curriculum.

 Granted, those additional subjects would have made the curriculum inflated and unmanageable. Parents complain that their kids are burdened by the number of school subjects and extended learning time. This brings us to the issue of school subjects versus education aims. Confusion begins when people mix them up.

 Education in general is aimed at making man more human, enabling him/her to understand human nature and the universe. Without a proper education, people become meaningless and they are bound to fail in life.

 As meaning is abstract and infinite and learning time and space are limited, the curriculum should be structured cost-effectively. Therefore, education should be conducted on the basis of knowledge about human nature, its actuality, potential and possibility within a particular culture.

 Philip H. Phenix in his book Realms of Meaning identifies six classes of meaning, indicating general kinds of understanding a person should have as a member of a civilized community. They are symbolic, empiric, esthetic, synnoetic, ethical and synoptic meaning. People should challenge the curriculum when it fails to inculcate the meaning. The meaning, not the subject, matters.

 Students develop meaning through school subjects or disciplines. Meaning is more or less fixed while school subjects are not always clearly assignable to a single class of meaning. Literary works, for example, can be used to teach multiple meanings — be it symbolic, empiric or esthetic meaning.

 Classification of meaning is important for facilitating student learning and for allocating school subjects. Practically speaking, meaning delivery is in the hand of teachers. The six categories of meaning are elaborated as follows.

 Students are taught empiric meaning through language and mathematics to enable them to use symbols meaningfully in communication. Literacy and numeracy are basic for human life. Therefore, language and mathematics, along with science, constitute core subjects in schools across the globe.

 Students are taught empiric meaning through the scientific enterprise, i.e. physical sciences, life sciences and social sciences to discover truth. While symbolics is based on form, empiric is based on observable facts. The teaching of sciences is to enable students to discover truth.

 At lower elementary levels, where play-based teaching is appropriate, there is no necessity to separate natural science (IPA) from social studies (IPS), as both are assignable to teach empiric meaning. The Education and Culture Ministry, commencing this year, is now redefining both subjects. From a pedagogical point of view, the focus should be on inculcating the empirical meaning rather than school subjects.

  Students are taught esthetics through music, visual arts, the arts of movement, literature, etc., to enable them to grasp esthetic meaning in life. Esthetics sharpens student feeling and sensitivity. The focus of teaching music is not to train students to be musicians but to develop musical sensitivity. The very end of teaching art is appreciation, not description of it.

 Synnoetic meaning is simply tacit knowledge as opposed to explicit knowledge. Different from symbolic meaning, which is abstract, synnoetic meaning, is personal meaning based on experience. Through literature, psychology and religion, teachers develop in students an existential meaning of their own life.

 Ethical meaning provides students with informed decisions to do things. It arises out of disinterested perception, while esthetic meaning arises from subjective perception. Students may have active personal commitment to a particular type of dancing at the cost of ethical meaning. In ethics, activities are done for purposes of public participation, as the public tends to share intersubjectivity on what is right or wrong.

 Through religious education, citizenship (PPKN) and Pancasila, teachers instill moral teaching on students. The outcome is not explicit student knowledge on the subject but rather putting moral values into practice. Physical education can also be used for teaching moral values such as fairness, sportsmanship, team work and a respect for rules.

 Synoptics, or synopsis of meaning, suggests an integrative function of all meanings elaborated above. History and religion are the major school subjects that promote synoptic meaning. Teaching history is not to memorize past events but to make sense of them in an integrated way. In the end, learning history is to improve the present and future.

 We have elaborated on the aim of general education — to provide students with six realms of meaning to make sense of themselves and the universe — however, we cannot put everything praiseworthy and desirable into the curriculum.

 The six meanings can be inculcated through multiple school subjects. Obviously elementary, secondary and tertiary students need different levels of understanding of the meaning. The curriculum should be designed accordingly.

 Which subjects propagate what meaning and at what level of education are vital curricular decisions to make. What matters most is the teacher who controls the class to inculcate the meanings.

A Chaedar Alwasilah ; 

A Professor

at the Indonesian Educational University (UPI) Bandung

JAKARTA POST, 19 Januari 2013

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Teacher, Not Curriculum, Matters

  The imminent introduction of a new curriculum in 2013 will not provide any guarantees for resolving the current problems in education in the nation. A new curriculum is always a good notion. However, drawbacks invariably stem from implementation. Thus, what is urgent is not to change the curriculum, but to implement it.

 Curriculum implementation means simply putting into effect the curriculum as intended, including a system to appraise its effectiveness. An appraisal process provides feedback for the development process, where the data is utilized for curriculum improvement. The educational curriculum needs continuous improvement, not continuous change.

 Curriculum improvement is not necessarily sequential; oftentimes it occurs in parallel as well as in tandem. It is usually begun in a certain area of the curriculum on a trial-and-error basis as an alternative to present practices. Evaluative data is useful for seeing the curriculum in action and is valuable for improving it.

 The 2013 curriculum, as Education and Culture Minister Mohammad Nuh has said, is an improvement over the 2004 and 2006 curriculums, which have been said to be competence-based and school-based respectively. Meanwhile, teachers are still learning how to put into action the 2006 curriculum.

 Regrettably, most teachers and the public in general are not informed about what essentially went wrong with the 2006 curriculum. The government should have publicized the evaluative data to identify which aspects of the curriculum were problematic. Such data would have made the curriculum change more sensible.

 Organizations such as teacher professional development networks (MGMP) should produce best practices that enrich not only the immediate community, but the profession as a whole. MGMP-based programs seem to be more context-specific, teacher-generated, and immediate-needs-driven.

 It is a disservice to the MGMP community when we fail to probe the effectiveness of MGMP-established programs and overlook their results. Such a mechanism utilizes the continuous professional development (CPD) of teachers.

 Curriculum improvement, rather than curriculum change, is focused on certain problematic aspects. Thus, curriculum improvement is more economic and problem-based. To repeat, what is essential for teachers is CPD, namely a career-long process in which teachers fine-tune their teaching to meet student needs. The major benefactor of CPD is the student. CPD directly tackles teachers’ teaching styles — the patterns of decisions to optimize student learning.

 Considering the huge number of teachers, the obstacle of CPD is the inaccessibility of professional development opportunities. Professional development opportunities seldom reach teachers in need. Only around 1 million out of 2.9 million teachers have currently been certified.

 However, a recent study by the World Bank on the impact of teacher certifications revealed that certification has improved teacher living standards but failed to upgrade teaching performance. They have failed to motivate students to learn. Obviously it is the teacher that matters most, not the curriculum.

 Any of the following could explain why the current government-initiated PLPGs (mandatory teacher professional development programs) have failed to upgrade teacher professionalism.

 First, not all teachers are talented and devoted individuals who have a commitment to teaching. The recruitment undertaken by teacher training institutions fails to differentiate teaching-talented prospective teachers from non-talented ones.

 Second, teachers differ from one another in terms of their theoretical and professional knowledge and the stages they are at in their careers. At present there are 10 state teacher training universities and dozens of public and private FKIPs (teacher training colleges). All these teacher training institutions vary in terms of resources, and this could explain the disparity in quality of their graduates.

 Third, the professional program is not necessarily tailored to teacher needs and motivations, so they do not develop ownership of it. Some teachers do not have good mastery of content knowledge, general pedagogical knowledge or contextual knowledge. Thus the content should be tailored accordingly.

 Fourth, some teachers regard professional development simply as an administrative duty, rather than as a career-long endeavor. Once the program is completed, teachers go back to their old way of teaching. True CPD is aimed at determining the factors that contribute to the success of all students and teachers.

 Fifth, the professional development program is detached from the entire school culture and climate. The CPD program will have an effect on student learning if it involves knowledge about teaching and learning in the school involved. The success of a CPD program is not measured by the completion of individual factors in the programs.

 The effect of CPD program is pervasive through an examination of how factors and stakeholders interact with one another. Professional development should be embedded in their daily schedule. In short, CPD should be schools-based.

 To be effective, the professional development should be developed by fulfilling the criteria suggested by Díaz-Maggioli in his book Teacher-centered Professional Development (2004) as follows: (1)collaborative decision-making, (2) a growth-driven approach, (3) collective construction of programs, (4) inquiry-based ideas, (5) tailor-made techniques, (6) varied and timely delivery methods, (7) adequate support systems, (8) context-specific programs, (9) proactive assessment, and (10) adult-centered instruction.

 The enactment of a new curriculum has always been greeted with doubt and cynicism. It is the teachers who will be held liable when it fails to function as expected. It is time to change the paradigm from government-initiated and top-down curriculum change to the teacher-centered and school-based continuous professional development as a part of curriculum improvement, rather than curriculum change.

A Chaedar Alwasilah ; 

A Professor

at the Indonesian Educational University (UPI) in Bandung

JAKARTA POST,  05 Januari 2013

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Renewing the national curriculum

Education and Culture Minister Mohammad Nuh has recently announced plans to revise the curriculum. The existing curriculum, despite its strengths, is considered out of date and unable to deal with the changing environment (Kompas, Sept. 5).

 A high-quality curriculum should, at least, consist of context, goal and content. Its viability, however, is determined by how the content is arranged and how evaluation of the curriculum is prepared.

 The curriculum should suit the characteristics of our students, who are considered part of the “Z generation”. They communicate through the Internet, using social networking websites. They are exposed to so much information both good and bad, appropriate with our culture and not. They live in an instant culture that prompts them to do and act fast. They are also influenced by a consumptive culture.

 In a nutshell, they need a different approach and method of learning.

 Students are used to tackling several problems at once. They are able to multitask with ease, talk with friends, search for information on the Internet and communicate by mobile phone. Their learning should not just be given in a linear approach, which sees subjects studied back and forth; rather they need a non-linear learning method too.

 Today’s students live in a globalized world where information, whether it is good or bad, is readily available. So they still need to think critically, to enable them to choose what information is beneficial and make decisions for themselves that affect their life. The new curriculum should help students develop critical thinking and make decisions.

 Since they learn from outside influences, not only from their teachers, the dynamic of the respect they give to teachers is different from that of students in the past. Today’s students are more independent than those from past generations; sometimes they don’t care about their teachers.

 The new curriculum should set clear goals, so we’ll be sure what to do. It has to identify competence goals that students need to master when they finish elementary or secondary school. The goals set should be short, realistic and achievable.

 According to the existing curriculum, students have to learn about 14-16 subject matters in each semester, which are too much. Due to the curriculum burden while the time is limited, students can only grasp the surface and miss the depth, preventing them from thinking critically. It is high time for the government to drop some subject matters and extend learning hours. The expected result is students will study with enthusiasm and develop their critical thinking.

 Some critics say that current curriculum stresses cognitive aspects but pays less attention to character building and transfer of values. Some indicators are the rampant student clashes, cheating and juvenile delinquency. Hopefully the new curriculum will emphasize character development to balance the cognitive aspect.

 There are several important questions related to the government’s plan to renew the curriculum. How will the content of the curriculum be managed? Will it be arranged systematically and in accordance with the students’ thought level and environment? How will the learning methodology be chosen to ensure that our goal will be fully accomplished? Should the learning method and strategy match the students’ culture and context?

 Our nation needs young people who can live together in peace and work together with others without any discrimination based on gender, ethnicity, religion and so on.

 Therefore, the curriculum should encourage pluralism and emphasize the spirit of our national and its motto Bhinneka Tunggal Eka (unity in diversity).

 When it comes to the evaluation of students’ performance, examinations (including the national exam) are administered to accomplish the goals of the curriculum. For example, if we want the students to develop critical thinking, the national exam should measure how reasonable and reflective students are. This means the examination should challenge students to think not just memorize.

 Based on the aforementioned reasons, the new curriculum should meet several criteria such as: (1) help students develop critical thinking and decision making, (2) allow students the freedom to think, (3) reduce the number of subjects, (4) allow for a pleasant learning process, (5) emphasize character education, (6) aim for clear and simple goals and (7) promote examinations that are prepared according to students’ ability and educational goals.

 Last but not least, the next curriculum should encourage students to work together and live as one family — called Indonesia.

 Anyway, a curriculum is just a plan. There must also be the freedom to implement and improve it

Paul Suparno ; 

A Lecturer at Sanata Dharma University, Yogyakarta

JAKARTA POST, 13 Oktober 2012

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