Primary and Secondary School Improvement 2019-2024
Iwan Pranoto
Public education expenditure is not positively correlated with the quality of education. A number of education surveys show that countries that spend large amounts of money on education do not necessarily have high quality education.
How the education budget is used is more influential than the magnitude of the amount of funds. The sharp decline in teacher salaries in Pakistan in the 1990s and the increase in teacher salaries in Indonesia in 2005, for example, apparently did not have any significant effect.
On March 12, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said the education system in Indonesia was not commensurate with the funds that had been spent. "We are disappointed that a number of graduates do not even reach the level we expect," said the finance minister. Rp 492.55 trillion ($35 billion) has been provided for education. "So, the budget is available, but there are still problems in utilizing it effectively."
Therefore, problems exist in the use of the education budget. What strategies might the next government take to overcome this situation?
Building skills
This article is based on the basic understanding that knowledge, at least like science, technology and mathematics, is global. Therefore, good quality science, technology and mathematics teaching books are available and this must be utilized by the state. This understanding will not only save money, but raise the quality of education to the world level.
Are the skills that have to be mastered by students in Manado different from their friends in Madrid?
The answer is certainly not simple, but the character of skills that are going global is getting bigger. The skills dealing with solving complex problems, communicating or critical thinking are global. On the contrary, skills that are local in nature, such as respecting and developing regional culture, are indeed felt to be increasingly important, but these skills are now outlined within the framework of global skills as well, such as learning to live together or understand the diversity of world cultures.
Therefore, it is not strange if several world organizations have for more than two decades proposed a series of skills that are of a global nature. For example, UNESCO through its Learning: The treasure within; report to UNESCO of the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first Century launched four pillars of learning (learning to know, learning to do, learning to live together and learning to manifest themselves).
The formulation of global skills is important to study because it does not only determine the education vision of all countries, but also has a technical impact on the arguments for using educational budgets. It is reasonable to question whether it is better for each country to adopt or depart from a series of global skills that have been formulated only through these various initiatives, then modify them to suit their countries.
Then, does the design of mathematics learning as well as science in terms of its standards, curriculum, examination and textbook really need to be different from one country to the other? Apart from the language, naming, terms, and illustrations in life that are really specific, are the subjects of mathematics, science and technology in New York different from those in New Delhi?
Focus of improvement
With the fact that several scientific disciplines that are global in character, there is no need for the state to waste funds, which are limited, to prepare standard documents, curriculum and textbooks from absolutely zero. The educational budget can be focused on areas that really need to be funded, such as teacher preparation programs, teacher skill improvement and provision of learning facilities.
Indeed, sometimes there is a reluctance to use teaching materials from other countries. Sometimes there are those who argue that there are no teaching books that are suitable for teaching. From there it must be questioned as to why mathematics or natural sciences in Indonesia is different from other countries. Isn\'t this reluctance a sign that there is a serious possibility that the mathematics teaching materials provided through schooling in Indonesia is trapped in past habits?
Policy makers need to demand a reasonable argument to ensure that the teaching materials being prepared, at least for universal disciplines, are indeed better than the teaching materials that already exist in the world. On the other hand, if the textbook is indeed of lower quality or even contains a number of errors, it should not be used. The state must be convinced that the teaching materials used by teachers and students do not contain errors. The state must be sure that the textbooks used in public education have at least the same quality as the textbooks available in the world.
Meanwhile, for scientific teaching materials at both the national and local levels, such as citizenship or regional languages, inevitably the state must design its own teaching materials. However, this also does not mean that national or local lessons are not related to similar lessons in other countries. There must be a shared understanding among countries, such as the most up-to-date way of thinking that can be utilized.
The above steps are in line with efforts to prepare alternative textbooks that have been explored by the Research and Development Agency of the Education and Culture Ministry. The textbooks are developed from neighboring countries. This needs to be used by schools and students, at the same time this alternative book will raise the benchmark of the quality of teaching materials in Indonesia to a higher level.
There is no need to prepare the teaching materials all at once. In the first stage, teaching materials are prepared for class I, IV, VII and X, the second stage for class II, V, VIII and XI. Finally in the third stage, class III, VI, IX and XII. So after three years, all classes will have new textbooks. Besides that, it is necessary to focus on just a few subject areas and gradually, there will be no need to apply all the lessons at the same time.
Improvement efforts
Over the next five years, improvements in learning needs to be planned by focusing on certain skills, for example, on sharpening reasoning skills, communicating (reading, writing, listening and speaking) and problem solving. Improvement efforts also need to be focused on schools that are in short of teachers in remote areas that are difficult to reach. In particular, efforts need to be focused on reforming the learning process in schools on small islands, which are far away and in remote areas with less facilities.
The previous way of teacher training, such as gathering and lecturing teachers in urban hotels, needs to be abandoned. Ancient ways like this are less effective and wasteful. Also, in this way, teachers who work in remote areas must leave their students.
Teachers can learn to improve their teaching methods through the broadcast of five-minute video pieces that are practical, straightforward and disseminated weekly through a simple communication application on mobile phones such as WhatsApp, Line or others. The video pieces may even be delivered in the mother tongues that will be more effective.
By abandoning the assumption that schools have an adequate number of teachers, the focus can be directed at improving learning by seeking the support of high-quality learning facilities. The provision of interactive learning such as through tablets is simple and inexpensive. This system must be designed from the start to be offline so that it does not depend on internet infrastructure.
Today interactive learning materials are well developed and freely available. For mathematics and science, for example, there are many learning modules and textbooks that have been developed by various international forums that are freely available.
The central and regional governments can focus on improving the learning process in schools by removing the old assumption that teachers are complete. On the contrary, it is necessary to explore the design of a learning environment that allows school children to learn independently, even if possible without teachers. Studies for this already exist, for example, by referring to the ideas of the Self Organized Learning Environment.
An ideal school certainly still needs to have an adequate number of teachers. This article does not mean to say that teachers are not necessary, but the preparation of teachers and teacher training are increasingly important and need to be carried out more carefully. However, efforts to prepare teachers need to be carried out quickly. Meanwhile, school children in remote areas do not have time to wait for the readiness of these teachers. These children need to experience quality learning right now. If the state has not been able to provide the most competent teachers, at least these children should be supported by the best learning facilities in the world. Students in the regions can and must undergo the best possible learning experience now. It can no longer be delayed.
Improvement efforts should be budget efficient, right to the target, measurable, easy to implement and interesting to explore. Improving education in Indonesia is not impossible.
Iwan Pranoto, Mathematics Lecturer at the Bandung Institute of Technology
