I enjoy cooking. My friends know that. I find that when I am able to transform simple ingredients into delicious and nutritious meals. For me it is amazing how simple ingredients can make something great. The same can be said about education. You do not need all the big, fanciful things to make an education system great. I believe that what you need are the people who know how to combine the small things to make that great transformation.

This idea of combining and transforming small things into something great has a lot of relevance with the concept of the sekolah berstandar internasional (SBI) in Indonesia. I think too often the attampt to raise the standards of Indonesian schools to schools of world standards has focused too much on the hardware rather than the software, or more accurately perhaps, “people ware”. It is this focus on hardware that has resulted in a concern among some Indonesian commentators that the push for SBIs is leading to two-different education systems, one for the haves and the other for the have-nots. I believe this is true only if schools are seen only as being able to become SBIs with the pre-requisite hardware in terms of modern technology and buildings.

However, if the idea of the SBI is not tied to hardware but to good teaching then ANY school in Indonesia can be an SBI, a school of world standards. In my view, a school of world standards is one where quality teaching is done and not one where only quality hardware is present. I have seen in my days as a consultant for the Ministry of Education (MOE) of Singapore pushing the country’s MasterPlan for IT in Education (MPITE) program, teachers teach in mediocre ways in well-equipped and modern schools.

If Indonesians are clear that it is good teaching that makes a world class school, more emphasis should be put on the teachers and the people who assist in the education process. These includes the school administrators (at least at the school level). If teachers can be trained to teach in a way that takes out the tedium of the usual process that has been unjustifiably called “teaching”, and if they can be trained to to a more participatory approach to teaching and learning by all involved in the process, any school can be become great.

Money then does not become the most important pre-requisite for SBI status. Good training for teachers does. This is more accessible then money for many Indonesian schools including the National schools. You do not need hardware to get students interested. You do not need hardware to teach students to think. You do not need hardware to get students to be creative. You do not need hardware to teach students to be tough. You do not need hardware to get them to be imaginative. You do not need hardware to inspire students. You do not need hardware to produce leaders. If Indonesian school set their minds to producing such students, the schools will become SBIs. It is a natural by-product of good teaching. Best of all it can be done with ingredients already found in Indonesian schools, both rich and poor ones. Both private and National schools.

What needs to be done is to train the teachers well. If this is done properly, they will transform the Indonesian schools into institutions that provide world class education. It is just like cooking. The ingredients are the same. It is the cook that counts.