Vocationalizing Education: The Dangers of Link-And-Match Paradigm
5.3 Competency-Based Curriculum: Reducing the Purpose of Education
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advantages. The more vocational schools being built without improvement in quality, the more vocational school graduates with low competencies will be produced. In other words, this policy could be dangerous because it will lead vocational schools to produce more employees that are not needed by or irrelevant to the industrial world and cannot cope with the fast-changing of twenty-first century challenges and opportunities.
Moreover, many Indonesian vocational schools still have traditional programs that do not match the current trend of skills needed by the industrial world and new learning approaches influenced by the fast-changing of the industrial revolution 4.0. For example, the Head of the West Java Provincial Education Office stated that there are 12 study programs at vocational schools considered saturated or no longer needed by the world of work, including office administration, motorcycle engineering, mechanical engineering, software engineering, nursing, pharmacy, hotel accommodation, etc. One of the causes of the saturation of these study programs is the increasing number of higher education graduates who are willing to work in these positions (Jurusan SMK Mulai Jenuh, 2018; Moratorium SMK Untuk Jurusan Sudah Jenuh, 2017). One of the possible explanations why such traditional study programs still exist at vocational schools might be related to the existing programs at higher education counterparts that produce vocational teachers and the existing teachers that teach at those study programs. In other words, closing such study programs at vocational schools will also close the same study program at higher education, and the ramifications are complex as they related to the bureaucratic management of higher education and the Ministry of Education as well as the teacher’s livelihood and career path. Additionally, new ways of learning through the Internet also possibly cause the saturation of labors in jobs related to such study programs at the vocational schools. It is because many people could access educational and training services in these areas easily through the Internet.
In this section I have discussed how vocational school curriculum as well as its policies might disadvantage students, trapping them in an educational service that provides them with knowledge and skills that do not meet job market demands and cannot be used to economically empower themselves in the fast-changing twenty-first century.
5.3 Competency-Based Curriculum: Reducing the Purpose
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government initiated a pilot project to formulate a curriculum design that could
“guarantee” the students meet the standard of competency (Departemen Pendidikan Nasional, 2003). Afterward, in 2004 the government officially released the new national curriculum called Competency-based Curriculum (CBC) and its framework became the basis of the curriculum development for the next curriculum in 2006 and 2013. In 2022 the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology released a new curriculum called Freedom Curriculum (Kurikulum Merdeka) as a response to the learning loss caused by Covid-19 outbreaks (Irhamni & Sahadewo, this volume) and the evaluation of the previous national curriculum of 2013 (Explainer: Learning Loss, 2022). While this new curriculum seemingly offers new ideas about how to design the appropriate curriculum (i.e., teaching at the right level, essential mate- rials, teachers’ autonomy, project-based learning, an annual target of curriculum completion, Pancasila student profile, etc.), the underlying curriculum development approach still follows a competency-based curriculum approach (see Anggraena et al., 2022).
Theoretically, a competency-based curriculum (CBC) has a different emphasis compared to a subject matter curriculum design. As the term explains itself, CBC heavily emphasizes the importance of student acquisition of competencies or skills, in contrast with subject matter curriculum that emphasizes the content knowl- edge derived from various disciplines. The shift from knowledge-based acquisition toward competency-based has been considered the answer to the existing problems of unskilled workers. At this point, competency has been positioned as different compared to knowledge. In general, “competency” has a synonymous meaning with
“skills” that are observable, demonstrable, measurable, more technical, and evidence- based. In other words, the term competency refers to students’ technical or soft skills that could be measured empirically such as in vocational school and the job market. This idea is in line with the demands of the industrial world for observable, demonstrable, and measurable competencies possessed by the workers (compared to Behar-Horenstein, 2010; see also Boahin, 2018). Central to a competency-based curriculum is the idea that competency should be derived from the market demand and the importance of assessment to substantiate the skills acquired by the students (Departemen Pendidikan Nasional, 2003; Mulyasa, 2002, 2006).
At the higher education level, the government proposed an Outcome-based Educa- tion (OBE) approach to strengthen and extend the implementation of competency- based curriculum approach. Outcome-based Education resembles competency-based curriculum, in the ways both aim to improve students’ competency based on measur- able performance (Direktorat Jenderal Pembelajaran dan Kemahasiswaan, 2018;
Spady, 1994). Both are based on the link-and-match paradigm because the main purpose is to meet job market demands. Additionally, the government also requires universities to follow the Indonesian National Qualification Framework (KKNI) as the national standard of competency derived from the labor market demand.
Either in higher education or in primary and secondary education, education must follow the national qualification framework (Direktorat Jenderal Pembelajaran dan Kemahasiswaan, 2018; Khurniawan et al., 2016; Manalu et al., 2017). In so doing,
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both CBC and OBE imply market-driven ideologies and a link-and-match paradigm that connect market demands and students’ learning at schools and higher education.
There are several problems with the concept of competency-based curriculum and its implementation in the Indonesian context, which will be explained as follows.
5.3.1 Problem 1: The Orientation of the Curriculum
As the term implies, a competency-based curriculum emphasizes the importance of skills acquisition by students at all levels of education (primary, secondary, and tertiary levels) and all types of education (general education and vocational educa- tion). The problem appears when the aims of the national education system contra- dict the dominant market-driven interests in the national curriculum. As mandated by the constitution, Indonesia’s national education system aims to prepare students to become human beings who believe in God, have a noble character, are healthy, knowl- edgeable, skillful, creative, independent, and ready to be democratic and responsible citizens (Pemerintah Republik Indonesia, 2003). The national curriculum should be directed at this aim in more balanced ways. Currently, the directions of Indonesian curriculum structure and policies demonstrated a strong tendency toward market- driven ideologies. It can be overtly seen from the obligation of the curriculum- making process at all levels and types of education to refer to KKNI, which was basically derived from job market demands. At this point, whatever the students need at schools, and whatever the constitutionally mandated national education aims, all education policies and praxis are directed towards producing skillful workers for the industrial world.
This orientation might have neglected other aims of the national education system, especially the social, cultural, and political purposes of education. If the national curriculum is an apparatus to reach national education aims, the curriculum should also accommodate other aims besides the economic/market-driven aim. For example, the purpose of the national curriculum of 2013 is to prepare Indonesian citizens who are faithful, productive, creative, innovative, and affective so that they can contribute to the life of the nation and the world (Kementerian Pendidikan dan Kebu- dayaan, 2013). However, the existing curriculum and educational policies reduced the national education purposes to producing skillful workers. In this regard, other knowledge acquisitions are only seen as supporting competencies to pursue the main purpose to become skillful workers.
5.3.2 Problem 2: The Content of the Curriculum
Instead of refocusing the curriculum structure to equip the students to be compe- tent to meet specific market demands, the structure of the national curriculum is still overloaded. It seems that the government still believes that more subjects will
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make students smarter and more competent. Therefore, in line with the notion of a competency-based curriculum to equip the students with certain skills needed to meet market demands, in 2004 the government added at least three more subjects into the national curriculum structure, namely Information and Communication Technology (ICT), crafting, and entrepreneurship for secondary education as the response to face the growing number of ICT use at the workplace and the need for new job openings.
In the 2013 national curriculum structure, there are seven subjects in elementary school, ten subjects in junior high school, and nine subjects plus four specializa- tion subjects in senior high school level (Kementerian Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan, 2016a, 2016b).
Furthermore, the government often adds new content to the official curriculum depending on the socio-political agenda they considered important, whether as curric- ular or co-curricular activities in the schooling setting. For instance, green school programs (known as Adiwiyata), anti-corruption programs, child-friendly school programs, and healthy school programs (Zamjani et al., 2020). At least, in the last ten years, the government has also emphasized certain competencies as have been endorsed by international organizations and the government itself. For example, one of the main emphases of the national curriculum of 2013 is the importance of char- acter building, twenty-first-century skills, specifically higher order thinking skills (Kementerian Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan, 2016b).
This condition shows the mismatch between the concept of competency-based curriculum and its existing curriculum structure. Competency-based curriculum aims to develop students’ measurable competencies, consequently, it needs a more concise and focused curriculum structure. On the contrary, when the curriculum structure is still full of subjects and has broad contents, the learning practice becomes more focused on the acquisition of the content rather than demonstrating the acquired competencies as competency-based curriculum wanted. In this case, focusing on the content resulted in the overload of the structure of the curriculum, this condition is no longer different from the previous curriculum of 1984 and 1994 (Unesco, 2011).
In order to overcome this content overload, the government proposed Kurikulum Merdeka (literally translates as Independent/Free Curriculum) in 2022 as an improve- ment from the previous national curriculum of 2013. The government claimed that this new curriculum is simpler, deeper, relevant, and interactive (Kurikulum Merdeka, 2022). However, this claim needs further analysis, because there is no clear explanation of which part of the curriculum is simplified.
5.3.3 Problem 3: The Implementation of the Curriculum
In order to ensure the implementation of competency-based curriculum at schools by teachers, the government establishes a control system/audit regime that emphasizes administrative documents. It is problematic and disadvantages the teachers as well as the students because when the government treats administrative documents as if it is the real evidence of the implementation of the curriculum; schools and teachers
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focus their attention to produce the documents. Therefore, instead of focusing on meaningful learning processes to enhance students’ competency, teachers try their best to produce administrative requirements of the curriculum, such as syllabi, lesson plans, assessment instruments, academic achievement reports, and academic sched- ules (Pakar: Beban Administrasi Guru, 2019). Consequently, teachers lose substan- tial amount of their time with students and have less headspace to check on students’
learning progress. Since ensuring student competencies require time and attention, the focus of a competency-based curriculum should be on the learning process, not on administrative documents. Much information indicated that this administra- tive document-based evidence policy forced the teachers to lie for the sake of the school’s reputation and survival in the market by compiling fake documents (Amin, 2013; Hamriah, 2013; Ruja & Sukamto, 2015). Similar patterns can be found in the implementation of several other education policies imposed using audit regimes or standardization of education, such as national examination (Ujian Nasional) and the minimum criteria of mastery learning (kriteria ketuntasan minimal, KKM).
Long before the government abolished the national exam in 2020 when Nadiem Makarim became the Minister of Education and Culture, Indonesia’s national educa- tion system established the national exam as the only entry-exit for students, espe- cially for senior high school students (Nadiem’s First Big Surprise: Abolish National Exam, 2019). Since the disadvantages of the national exam were more than its poten- tial benefits, many scholars criticized this one-size-fits-all exam. For example, the national exam turned learning practice into a daunting and frightening moment for final-year students, and therefore refracted the aims of education. The national exam also hindered meaningful learning processes, especially during the third year of senior high school when all students joined exam preparation programs. Besides, the national exam was also political since it was often considered a pseudo measurement to assess the governors, regents, mayors, and heads of education offices success in doing their job (Arifin, 2012; Darmaningtyas & Subkhan, 2012; Hardono, 2020;
LaForge, 2013; Panjaitan, 2017; Subkhan, 2016). When the government replaces the national exam with the National Assessment that focuses on literacy, numeracy, student character, and school learning environment in 2020, such political tones of education assessment could decrease if schools and local governments change their mindset about the politics of educational achievement (see Nadiem Makarim Announces, 2019).
Similarly, KKM also resulted in other problems for both students and teachers because this policy encouraged teachers to push students to pass the minimum stan- dard of academic achievement for each subject. The minimum standards are estab- lished by the school, and it often refers to the school’s accreditation status. The higher the accreditation status of the school, the higher the minimum standard they must set. Ideally, when students cannot meet the minimum standard, they should join remedial programs. In reality, instead of giving remedial learning to those who need more guidance, most teachers simply give students another chance to retake the test to get higher scores. Teachers also tend to manipulate students’ scores as if they meet the minimum standard (Albertus, 2017; Zamjani et al., 2020, pp. 9–12), which is understandable considering their heavy workload. This top-down pressure
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on student academic performance put teachers in a difficult position because meeting the KKM related to school accreditation, and in so doing teachers are forced to do their best to raise their students’ academic achievement according to the KKM they set. Therefore, it seems that the results of KKM are not necessarily representative of the actual competencies of students.