I read some articles in the online news website showing some teachers protested the government’s decision to approve the new curriculum to be applied in our national education system this year. One of the protestant mentioned that the new curriculum is only a political movement of M. Nuh in his last year as the Education minister of this country; so that he will be known as the revolutionist of the education system in Indonesia. Another protestant also mentioned that this could be a potential “killer machine” for lots of teachers in Indonesia who will lose jobs because of the idea of integrated subjects. Furthermore, the new curriculum will decrease the teachers’ quality because everything is already been set up and controlled by the government. The last statement maybe refers to the “buku babon” which is going to be published by government and will be the only resource teacher will use for the new curriculum. This phenomenon had been going on since the first semester of 2012 when the news about the new curriculum 2013 was first announced. But, if we are looking back again at this current situation what is exactly the main issue of our education system in relation with the curriculum. In this writing, I’d like to discuss a bit about it and share my opinion toward this issue which hopefully could give more perspective when dealing with the application of the new curriculum 2013.
Early in March, Sekolah Ciputra held a seminar which was opened for public, specifically for parents. The main aim of the seminar was to introduce the new curriculum to parents and to give them more insight about what to prepare with their children education regarding with this change. Lots of parents and education practitioners attended the session which was held in one of hotel in centre of Surabaya. Dr. Anita Lie was the keynote presenter of the event and I was taking part to present about the possible application of the new curriculum into classrooms with my colleague, Diana Sumadianti. Early on the keynote session, Dr. Anita Lie mentioned that curriculum must be changed regularly. She quoted that curriculum meant to be a “vehicle” to deliver the content and competencies to pupils. By saying that, it means that curriculum should and must be updated regularly to suit the needs of the education system of a country. So if some people were questioning and being doubtful about why we have to change the curriculum too often, they need to agree and understand that it’s what it meant to happen. Considering about the constant dramatic changes to the world, we could not depend on one particular curriculum model which influences the actual teaching and learning into classroom. Education is not a static substance which can’t be changed; instead it must be dynamic and consistently developed to match with the constant changes of the world around us. Furthermore, she mentioned that the changes should come with consequences that it should be effective and thorough including the improvement of the curriculum stakeholders, which in this case means the teachers and students as the key points, school administrators and of course, the biggest community but often are neglected, the parents. In this case, government needs to reflect and be relevant that it would be very challenging to apply this curriculum without the investment on the improvement of the teachers’ quality too, because they are the tip of the arrow who hold most important role in the delivery of the curriculum into reality.
So, what are actually the changes in the new curriculum? What would be the potential problems or the further issues which might come from the application and could affect our education system? I had a chance to read the draft of the curriculum in the public tested material by the ministry of education, and I found some positive changes towards the curriculum including the major shift in the teaching learning approach. Of course, I also found few absurd adjustments especially about the 4 basic competencies which include religion competency as part of the required expectation. I won’t discuss much and argue further about this part, since there were too many argument already happened during the making of the curriculum; in which Dr. Anita Lie was included in the curriculum developing team and she was in the position of against the idea. So I would like to discuss further about the positive changes or at least the good intentions to improve the quality of our curriculum.
One major change from KTSP is the idea to have thematic integrated approach in teaching learning of all subjects in elementary level. Subjects like social studies and science will be merged into language subject, means the content of these subjects will be integrated and delivered in Bahasa Indonesia lesson. It will happen until students reach year 4 where they will have social studies and science lessons again. When seeing this idea, I must say that it was pretty ambitious idea, yet also brings good missions toward the movement of our education systems. This idea might work well, because many of disciplinary concepts are actually transferrable between subjects. It’s really possible to deliver science content in the language class, because language can be used as the media to learn. For example: when the students are learning about energy, they will read text about types of energy, write procedures of scientific experiment, and explain the result of the experiment orally, plus there are big possibilities to discuss certain concepts from other subjects such as: social studies concepts about the conservation of energy; and all can be done in language class. Does it sound like a brilliant idea? So, why it’s too ambitious? I could see that this new approach is intentionally developed to try to keep up-to-date and catch up with the latest educational trends or at least to be similar with international curriculum own by private global education organization like International Baccalaureate (IB). Just to clarify that IB had done this program in almost 40 years, the concept of integrated or what they called transdisciplinary curriculum has been rooted in the teaching learning practices in all IB schools around the world, including Sekolah Ciputra, of course with all its own downsides and challenges. Now you can imagine, how long will it take for this curriculum to be settled and effectively applied in our country, considering the teachers’ quality, professional development and resources investment, and of course the demographic aspect. This theory of integrated approach is far easier to be discussed and talked about, rather than to be applied in the actual teaching learning process, especially when the teachers still have old paradigm of education system. So, I would suggest that the government need to focus and to invest more on the development of teachers’ quality as well as the provision of the resources, which cannot depend on one “buku babon” only.
Another big move for teaching learning approach in the curriculum 2013 is that its application should be students-centered; means the learning will focus on what students’ need to learn instead of teacher become the sole leader of the class. This movement is something that I and many other educators around the nation have predicted and waited for. It was mentioned in the curriculum workshop presentation that one of the problems with the previous curriculum (KTSP) is that the learning process was still focused more on the breadth of knowledge which led to so many misinterpretation of the purpose of the curriculum itself and finally it ended up with teachers leading everything happen in the class. Once again, I will use IB curriculum as comparison of this idea. In many international curriculums standard, including the national curriculum used in superpower countries, this education philosophy had been believed by many education practitioners around the world; that learning should be holistic, students centered and must be constructed from what students’ needs, not from what the teacher wants. This ideal movement will open the door for many possibilities of better teaching learning process, lead to higher thinking levels more than only memorizing facts, and also the development of character of the student as human being and as a long-life learner. Besides it is relevant with inquiry based learning model which is promoted in lots of countries for their education system. For example, when students learning about human rights, instead of asking them to memorize the human rights charter, the learner could observe a real life issue around them and try to make connection with the Human rights charter; in that case, the learning will be more meaningful and real life context. International Baccalaureate facilitated that needs by publishing curriculum frameworks which can be applied in schools around the world with strong support of professional development of the teachers and also a well-built IB community as forum to share experiences, resources and ideas for the application of the curriculum; of course it comes with the price. But, I think that what the government should do by investing on those aspects and empowering all educators to build learning community as place for their informal professional development too, because we all know we learn best through sharing.
There are some other changes in the new curriculum which I might discuss in my next writing, probably with some tips what teachers and parents should do to prepare. For now I might just say that change is inevitable and is never easy. Without the necessary changes, there will be no growth is evident in the development of a country. We must completely realize that change comes with consequences; either positive or the negative ones. And I would say that the best thing that we can do at this point is by keeping our positive attitudes toward this change. Teachers, like myself, must be proactive in adapting with the new curriculum and must take initiative to learn; not only waiting and depend on the government’s support for providing the professional development and other necessary incentives. I always believe that, teacher is also a learner who must never stop learner and stay up-to-date with the latest educational trends; to ensure that we are ready to apply the new curriculum that will be released soon or even any other changes that waiting ahead of us. So are you ready with the new curriculum? Keep up the spirit and stay positive, Indonesian teachers!