Indonesia today is experiencing a rapid growth in the number of international schools and what is termed, the National Plus schools. The rapid increase in the numbers of these schools in Indonesia reflects the desire of many Indonesian parents to give the best possible education to their children. These schools usually have their students sitting for high stakes international examinations like the IGCSE or the local UASBN. Recently, more schools are following the much touted Singapore model. This is done usually through an almost simplistic wholesale transfer of the typical Singapore school system to the Indonesian schools.

In addition to these, there has also been an increased clamor for schools to acquire Sekolah Berstandar Internasional (SBI) status. These are essentially schools populated by Indonesian teachers and possessing an Indonesian curriculum but with standards that match that of what is thought to be the standards of international schools in terms of facilities and the manner of the teaching and learning that takes place. But even then, there is no real agreement as to what constitutes an SBI.

Despite the seeming confusion, this period actually offers Indonesia a golden opportunity to explore alternative school models. One such model is the model of a Smart School as propounded by David Perkins of Harvard University. In Perkins’ model, thinking and understanding takes center stage in the learning processes in the school. This would produce students who are responsible and also thinking people who can contribute to a diverse world.

The Smart School (click on picture on left) as envisage by Perkins would have a clear idea of what knowledge or skill is worth learning and this would be based on the idea that education is about the teaching for understanding. It would be a shift from the largely rote-learning approach of most schools today which is the result of a teaching approach that is aimed at the examinations.  A student that is the product of this Smart School would be intellectually empowered because he would have been immersed in a thinking culture in his time in the school. He would be able to think critically, flexibly and deeply after they have left school. This means that his learning will not be surface learning that only allows him to be exam smart. The product of the Smart School would be able to display generative knowledge which means that they are able to retain knowledge for the long-term and not just for the examinations; they have an understanding of knowledge; and that they would be able to use the knowledge that they have beyond the classrooms.

In a Smart School, therefore, students would not be engaged in what Perkins calls meaningless trivial pursuit of information where learning is just the amassing of huge chunks of facts and routines, and the teacher is concerned with the teaching of quantity rather than depth. In his Trivial Pursuit Theory, Perkins also argues that the information would be truncated, disjointed and meaningless.

If we look at the goals set by Perkins for his Smart School, they are goals which I am confident anyone would agree with. If we just look at the rising voices of unhappiness with the current school systems in Singapore and also Indonesia, one of the loudest complaints is the over-emphasis on remembering and regurgitating huge chunks of facts and routines. Parents know that a lot of what is forced on the memory of their children will have little relevance later. Much of what is learned is seldom applied in the lives of their children later.

Parents (and employers too) should seek a serious change in the way schools go about their business of teaching. They should also realize that the number one reason why schools today on the whole still emphasize the meaningless memorizing of facts and routines is due to the high stakes examination system that has been adopted by schools. If there is this realization, parents should think carefully about seeking schools whose main goal is to prepare their students for such examinations because when this is the goal usually deep understanding is sacrificed. The end result in such school systems is that there is usually only a pretense at education. Worse, these schools give the ignorant a false sense of security that real teaching and learning is taking place. The good news is that this does not have to happen.

The following is my response to a discussion in Indonesia Matters about education in Indonesia. I just thought I would share it with all of you.

I hope I am not too late in contributing my thoughts to this discussion. Perhaps I let be known my background so hopefully it becomes clearer where I am coming from.

I am a Singaporean and a trained teacher who used to teach in government schools in Singapore for about 18 years and for four of those years as a trainer and consultant in the Ministry of Education HQ itself for the nation-wide Master Plan for IT in Education (MPITE). I have also worked as a consultant in Indonesia very recently. However, having said all these, my thoughts and opinions on some of the issues that has been raised here are mine alone.

The first comment I would like to make is with regards to LKY and controlling the masses. I am no fan of LKY but I think with hindsight sometimes we forget the actual condition when decisions were made years ago. The assumption that LKY wanted a system of education where the goal is, to quote Sylvester,  “to fully control the Singapore people” may be invalid. That statement presumes many things about LKY, among them that he is fully aware of the differing approaches to teaching. Singapore gained its independence in 1965 and I really doubt that many people would know of Gardner’s theories or Sternberg’s or Goleman’s ideas with regards to the other intelligences. In fact, they appear only much much later eg Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences appeared only in 1984 in his book, “Frames of Mind”, that is almost 19 years after SIngapore’s independence. So to assume as implied by Sylvester and others that the SIngapore system was introduced to control minds is, I think, way off. More likely, the powers-that-be then didn’t know any other way. They were the “successful” products of an examination-based system so they probably thought at that time that was the only other way. The logic (illogic?) is perhaps, if it had worked for me, it should for everyone else.

Furthermore, if you look at it from another historical perspective, Suharto came to power after th coup while LKY’s policies have been more or less in place since the PAP came to power in 1959. To assume also that LKY and Suharto (and I am not a fan of Suharto too) became such pals to learn from one another is assuming that relations between the leaders of Singapore and Indonesia became what it was later under Suharto very quickly. This is highly unlikely in the light of the then recent Confrontation between Indonesia and Malaysia (and SIngapore).

So I humbly submit that the education policy in Singapore under LKY then was not due to some conspiracy theory to control the minds of Singaporeans. If control is the result of the system, it is probably more a by-product. Even then I wonder if a system that truly teaches people to be logical and so on will have produced a people that submits to the kind of control as has been suggested. As for Suharto, I think one needs to look only at his military background to give you some clue.

With regards to the “feudalism” that exists among “educators” in Indonesia, I think this is due to more a lack of training of teachers to teach in a different way, and more importantly perhaps, the kind of assessment that the student will face. Unfortunately (fortunately?), Indonesia seems to be heading the way fo high stakes exams like SIngapore and usually when schools in Indonesia say they follow the Singapore system, they usually mean their students will sit for the SIngapore-style exams. This kind of system usually doesn’t encourage the skills that some of you have been suggesting. There is little time as the exam syllabus must be completed no matter what happens. Here again, we wonder who is at fault. Indonesian parents who used to be able to send their kids to Singapore have now resorted to sending them to Singapore-style schools in Indonesia since the last major financial crisis. They drive the demand for such schools. Are they the best people to ask about the kind of education? My answer is a firm “no”. But then again from my experience, education is the only sector where everyone seems to have a say about how it should be done even if they are not in that line. You will never see that happening for medicine and engineering.

So although it is good that parents want better schools for their children, do Indonesian parents really know what is better? If they just want to blindly ape, for example, Singapore, they are doing themselves an injustice. The Singapore system isn’t all bad but it has its weaknesses too and any adoption of that system must fit with what Indonesia wants and the situation in Indonesia.

The next issue I will discuss is with regards to the philosophy of education. To be honest, I think most government’s don’t think about philosophy of education. I think iamisaid who seems knowledgeable about philosophy would know that there are so many differing philosophies of education (in the West alone), not to mention that of the other great civilizations. But I am inclined to think that most countries of the world don’t subscribe to any. Most governments turn to economics as their “philosophy”. The economy defines what kind of schools. Even educators have begun to see it that way. To quote a phrase from an American presidential campaign of yesteryear, “It’s the economy stupid.”

About teachers pay, yes unfortunately it is a reality that you give peanuts you get monkeys. And no offense is meant to any Indonesian teachers out there. All things being equal, it is always better to get the best to do a job, any job. In Singapore they have been getting graduates from the upper 1/3 of the university cohorts to be teachers. In the US, fyi, it is the bottom 1/3 and I suspect that is true of Indonesia too.

Having said this, from my experience I know that not all academic high-flyers make great teachers and I have personally made friends and have great professional respect a pretty good number of teachers in Indonesia. And I have also known many academic high flyers who are mediocre teachers in Singapore. But there is no denying a better pay will help the educational sector of Indonesia.

Someone mentioned above about multilingualism but after my experience in Indonesia I wonder if it is necessary or if it is, should it be for all students (at the risk of sounding elitist here)? Why do I question the need for multilingualism, which usually means the acquisition of a global language like English? I don’t have hard data but just admittedly mere observations. When I look at the book shops in Indonesia, I do not see a dearth of academic or technical literature in the shops in Bahasa Indonesia. This is very unlike Malaysia which had one time a Malay first language policy and they have been unable to do just this and hence are trying a return to giving more importance to English again. So is there a need for multilingualism? If so, should it also be for all Indonesians? Japan doesn’t have a multilingual policy. It doesn’t seem to be facing much problems there. The same could be said of Germany too.

With regards to the corruption and poor management, I cannot but sadly agree. During my time as a consultant for school over there, I steered clear from dealing with the DINAS officers who came to the school that I had helped set up. They would come for visits and expect to be greased. While I condemn this I also can understand this because their pay is not much different from teachers in Indonesia. This affecting the quality of the education system in your country. I can cite some personal examples that I have witnessed but I think you yourself will probably know of even more examples from your own experience.

The issues I have raised here is not to bash Indonesia. I have in fact come to love your country and share in its concerns despite its shortcomings. But as I just hope my contribution here only helps to continue this process of clarifying that is needed for any real and meaningful change to take place. As iamisaid pointed out we could also “do more by reflecting on the positives … think are the necessary steps for Indonesia to upgrade the standard of education so that it is progressive and fulfills the aims in nation building.”