I have read some concerns about the sekolah-sekolah berstandar internasional (SBIs) in Indonesia. One of these concerns is the reduction of the Indonesian identity as a result of the attempted shift towards international educational standards.

I can understand the concerns. I think this is again (as I have been saying all these while) there is a general confusion about what an “SBI” means. One of the most glaring problems that is the result of this confusion is the copying of a model which is perhaps most unsuited for Indonesia. Here I am talking about the Singapore school model that has often been adopted by schools in Indonesia as the model par excellent. This adoption of the Singapore model may be due to a few reasons.

Firstly, it may be due to Singapore’s international reputation for producing “top” students in international olympiads and also in international surveys like TIMSS. Secondly, it is due to Singapore’s proximity to Indonesia which perhaps serve to remind Indonesians of what is lacking in their educational system especially bearing in mind how small Singapore really is in comparison to giant Indonesia. Thirdly, wealthy Indonesians have historically sent their children to Singapore before the financial meltdown of the 1980s for an education and that is the education system they are most familiar with. It is not a surprise therefore that they look to Singapore as a model. Fourthly, the setting up of the Singapore International School (SIS) with its Singapore curriculum in Jakarta, brings the model even closer to Indonesians. The result is a rush to imitate the Singapore system. With Diknas promoting the idea of SBIs, the SIS model is seen as the model to follow for Indonesia. I believe that in general this is no fault of Diknas but more the fault of the owners of such schools which are usually privately-owned schools who have one eye fixed on profits. While making profits is not a sin, owners should be more serious about what education is about.

This blind aping of the Singapore system has meant a few things for these schools that aspire to be of international standards. Firstly, it has led to an emphasis on students taking international examinations like the iPSLE and the IGCSE because that is the nearest equivalent to the PSLE and the Singapore-Cambridge GCE “O” and “A” level examinations done in Singapore. The adoption of these examinations has meant that some subjects traditionally found in Indonesian schools have been given reduced emphasis especially subjects like Bahasa Indonesia and Social Studies with sometimes these subjects being combined. Nobody really stops to ask why international examinations are necessary in the first place. Indonesian students have had no  problems going to overseas universities in the first place without these examinations. They still can with their indigenous educational qualifications.

The second change which is perhaps another reason for the lament about the loss of the Indonesian identity, is the over-emphasis in the use of the English language. Here again there is an unchecked assumption that to be of international standard, a school must offer English as the medium of instruction. For schools like SIS where students take the iPSLE and the IGCSE, English is required as a medium of instruction because the examinations are done in English. Mastery of English is crucial. But some of the National Plus schools in Indonesia who have been touting themselves or planning to be SBIs have also chosen to take the same route. But what the owners have ignored is that, in the SIS model, almost all the teaching staff are very effective expatriate speakers of English. You have a staff of native English speakers supported by teachers from Singapore and the Philippines. Almost all the National Plus schools that want to offer IGCSE don’t have that. They have opted for a token approach with maybe one or two native English speakers. I do not mean any disrespect to Indonesian teachers but teaching in English is a problem for most of them. I am sure Indonesian teachers will agree that if Singapore teachers are asked to teach in Bahasa Indonesia to prepare their students in Bahasa Indonesia-based examinations, it will be pure folly. Using English as a medium of instruction requires a higher English language competency than a TOEFL score of 500. Even then Indonesian schools that aspire to be SBIs and touting the use of English as one of the essentials of SBIs, have great difficulty of getting teachers with that score of 500.

But despite these language difficulties, I believe Indonesians should not think that it is beyond them to get to the level of SBIs. But a re-intepretation of what an SBI is must be done. Perhaps, “re-intepretation” is not the correct term. A return to a proper understanding of what SBI is more accurate. Mastery of a foreign language was never one of the goals set for the SBIs by Diknas. What Diknas wants at the end of the day is a good educational standard where good teaching is done. Schools in Indonesia can set themselves that standard of quality teaching. By quality teaching it means teaching that is relevant to the needs of a modern Indonesian nation who aspires to be a member of this globalized world, yet firmly anchored in its Indonesian identity.

This can be done using the Indonesian curriculum with a lot of re-training for the teachers and some tweaking of the curriculum. Indonesian schools should still use the Indonesian language as the medium of instruction. This is for both nationalistic and pragmatic reasons. Indonesia is not Singapore and I believe the Indonesian schools will be better off as Indonesian schools then as “half-baked Singapore schools”.

In Indonesia, there is currently a deep interest in the “Sekolah Berstandar Internasional” or SBI concept. “Sekolah Berstandar Internasional” can be translated as “School of International Standard”. The idea of the SBI is being pushed by the Indonesian education ministry, DINAS, in an effort to upgrade the quality of Indonesia’s schools. It realizes the importance of Indonesia not falling behind internationally because of the poor quality of education offered in its schools.

DINAS itself is conscious of the rising popularity of schools in Indonesia that exist so that students can take international examinations like the IGCSE and the IB. However, it is concerned that such schools may orient Indonesians to look out of Indonesia and this may have an effect on its national development goals. Furthermore, it can be argued that such schools tend to cater to an elite minority belonging to the upper middle class and middle class. Such schools tend to be beyond the means of the average Indonesian who sent their children to the government schools. It is perhaps to cater to this lower income group, and to allay fears of the creation of an elite group of Indonesians with one foot out of Indonesia,  that DINAS has proposed the creation of SBIs. In official DINAS documents, the SBIs are supposed to be staffed by local teachers with a local curriculum that emphasized quality  teaching and learning that is on par with the rest of the world yet rooted in Indonesia.

However, private schools in Indonesia have been looking elsewhere for their model. In this search many schools have looked at the Singapore model as the example to be copied. Singapore-style schools have sprouted up with the typical Singapore emphasis on high stakes written examinations. “Educational consultants” from Singapore have pushed for a transplanting of the Singapore school system upon Indonesia without a thought or understanding of the real needs of Indonesia because little thinking is required by such an approach. There is also an almost arrogant assumption by some of these educational consultants that what works in Singapore, will work just as well with minor only minor tweaking.

As an example, Singapore school textbooks which are in English, are being used for lessons in such Singapore-style schools in Indonesia, never mind if the level of English language competency is not at the same level as Singapore. Not quite a few of these educational consultants have of course ingeniously argued that Indonesian students need to learn English like Singapore students because English is needed to be on par with the rest of the world.

Some even argue that Indonesian students need English to enroll in foreign educational institutions, which is far from true. They, of course, notably forget to mention that countries like Japan, Germany have done well enough without English at the earlier stages of school. Not too mention also that in Singapore you do have the environment that you need to learn English unlike in Indonesia where it is hard to come by, even through TV!

In addition, if the goal of DINAS is to produce good quality education, written examinations do not guarantee this. Singapore-style high stakes written examinations only turn schools into examination preparation centers, which are what Singapore schools really are in general. Students can still do well in such examinations even without deep understanding of the subject matter because much of such examinations require only rote-learning of facts and mechanical operations.

Indonesians would also do well to remember that even in Singapore there is already an acknowledgment to move away from this “examination-centeredness” in its schools. Yet, Indonesians are being peddled with the same outmoded Singapore approach. If Indonesians keep following these outdated approaches to education, they will always be playing catch up when they have every opportunity to jump to a higher level and a better approach to education more suited to the needs of their country.

I have written a few posts about the directions that Indonesia’s schools should take. Sekolah berstandar internasional (SBI) seems to be the education-related idea most talked about Indonesia. This SBI idea itself is a move in the right direction, provided that everyone concerned is clear about what it should be. It is not just about getting the school certified as an international examination center. It is not just about having science or computer laboratories. It is, as I have indicated in an earlier post, not about all that glitters. It is at the end of the day the quality of the learning and teaching.

In some other posts, I have also suggested using David Perkins’ Smart School model with its emphasis on deep learning and thinking as model for the creation of an SBI. It is not to create a school where the focus is on the creation of examinations-smart students like we tend to see in countries like Singapore. It is about producing students with an attitude and the skills to fit the future that these students will live in.

For Indonesia, it becomes even more important that schools aspiring to be world-class educational institutions should emphasize on the importance of thinking among its student population. The learning of thinking skills ought to be emphasized. This is because Indonesia today is a young democracy. In democratic states, it is a requirement for the democracy to succeed that its people be able to make informed and intelligent choices. They must also be people who are actively participative in the democratic process, able to look beyond themselves. An authoritarian educational system like the traditional systems we see in schools in even countries with supposedly good education system like Singapore, will never be able to produce citizens for a democracy. The over-emphasis on competition in schools only breeds undemocratic attitudes and values because the emphasis in such competitive environments is the individual’s own success. A system that emphasizes only examinations will not encourage space for thinking either as there is usually little time for anything else except examination preparation which is the raison detre of such schools. Yet the need for a thinking population is vital for a democracy to work.

For the above reasons, Indonesian schools must avoid just blindly aping neighbours’ educational system. The values of their neighbours may differ from that of Indonesia. No doubt some of the values that these neighbouring countries represent is good, like hard work and honesty but do Indonesians really want to copy everything without thinking through the implications for her future.