Chapter 2. Kurikulum 2013 – What are Students Learning?
4. Proposed future directions for the curriculum
The clear intention of the Indonesian Government is to ensure that students, in all circumstances, will receive the intended curriculum. However, there is a huge “disconnect” between the policy intentions of the national government and the quality of service delivery at the local level. The reasons for this disconnect are historical, very complex (including contradictory or unclear laws and regulations) and vary with context (e.g.
inexperience of staff in newly created districts). As can be seen in other chapters of the Background Study, the reasons are not primarily lack of funding, but lack of individual and system capacity.
In this context the key issues that will impact on the roll-out of the new curriculum are: the current low competence of teachers; the weak pedagogical leadership capacity of principals, supervisors and officials;
and ineffective quality assurance systems, coupled with the lack of either sanctions or incentives to fully implement national policies as intended. Implementing Kurikulum 2013 as intended will require both strengthening existing systems and adopting some new ways of working with schools and teachers.
The key to strengthening systems and improving schools may lie in the balance of “pressure and support”
in which school accountability, transparency with the community, performance management of teachers, school appraisal and monitoring processes are strengthened at the same time that more effective support is provided to teachers by supervisors, principals, support groups and in-service providers. Negative pressure has a blind sense of urgency but is pressure without means; it is punitive and results in blaming, shaming and win-lose competitions. In contrast, positive pressure has a focused sense of urgency,transparency of data and non-punitive accountability, and it brings together peers and partnerships16. This concept of pressure and support appears to work in many contexts, including developing countries, but needs to be customised for the Indonesian cultural context in which individuals are often reluctant to challenge the views of more senior persons or to give direct and honest feedback to peers and supervisees.
In relation to the implementation of the new curriculum, using the model of pressure and support, key questions will be: Is a given pressure or support action motivational for those who will be responsible for implementing change? Will it generate the intrinsic desire inteachers, district officials, principals to put in the effort to get good results? The appropriate and potentially most effective resource to provide the pressure and support for the change process (and school improvement in general) is the approximate 27,000 school supervisors based at district/city offices and whose role was intended (by the School/Madrasah Supervisor Standards 12/2007) to monitor schools and guide and support teachers.
Currently, however, school supervisors are massively under-utilised for school improvement and in many cases unsuitable and/or lacking skills to take a leading role in educational leadership. The teacher competence tests undertaken in 2012–13 found the average score of supervisors to be lower than that of principals or teachers. In 2013, a Baseline Survey17 of the specific skills needed by supervisors found that
“supervisors lacked competence in key areas related to their role – particularly advice to teachers about effective teaching and learning, use of laboratories to support learning, developing indicators of effectiveness, analysing and using the results of supervision and all aspects of research and development”.
At this stage, the majority of supervisors would be incapable of effectively leading pedagogical reform.
There are many reasons for this situation including recruitment practices not aligned with the role, lack of training and development opportunities, lack of travel allowance or transport to visit schools, weak accountability and no well-defined mandate. A major reform of the role, recruitment, qualifications and conditions of school supervisors could be the keystone for effective and sustainable school improvement, including effective implementation of curriculum. Such reform is already in the pipeline. In 2014, supervisors are being included in continuous professional development programs for school principals, and legislation is being drafted by the Ministry for reforms to their role, recruitment, support and conditions. This reform must be implemented fully and a new culture established in which supervisors will be the front line of improvement, using both pressure and support to drive more effective teaching.
4.1 Recommendations for consideration by Government
(i) The new curriculum must be given adequate time to deliver the expected benefits, but there should be ongoing rigorous and comprehensive evaluation based on observations in classrooms and expert analysis, which can lead to incremental improvements in the curriculum at all stages of implementation. The review and evaluation should be independent from those responsible for implementation.
(ii) Establish an independent authority such as a new Curriculum and Assessment Authority or a revitalised and properly resourced National Standards Board (BSNP). This independent authority would be responsible and adequately resourced to implement a cyclical plan of review with extensive opportunities for teachers and all education stakeholders to participate fully in review processes, providing a range of evidence, including samples of students’ work and classroom assessments. This could avoid the frequent “sudden shocks” of the last decade’s curriculum pronouncements and ensure that classroom evidence was part of the review process. An independent authority would also provide some measure of protection from alternating political interests.
(iii) Within Kurikulum 2013, urgent consideration should be given to reviewing the total lesson time for academic subjects in Primary and Junior Secondary, in order to allocate more lesson time for improving performance in Maths, Science and Literacy, as student achievement in these areas is very low on both national exams and international tests when compared with international standards.
(iv) Teacher support for the new curriculum should be focused on in-school collaboration for professional learning, led by principals and supported by competent school supervisors. This will require principals to be fully prepared to take on the role of pedagogical leaders in their schools.The current Continuous Professional Development (CPD) program for principals and candidate principals must be implemented as planned, and sustained. School and Madrasah supervisors must partner with principals at the front line in the process of improving teaching, drawing on support from teacher education institutions and networks, including teacher professional associations. Training and development for teachers must be primarily on-the-job learning using what has been proven to work in classrooms. This can be supplemented by resources on the Internet, networking through social media platforms, capitalising on advances in tablet and mobile phone technology as well as formal distance learning to provide resources and support when teachers need it most. Innovative curriculum support should enable teachers in all circumstances to network, share lesson plans and assessment tasks and have immediate access to teaching resources from the Ministry.
The approach over the next five years should be kept as simple as possible, working on a small set of key objectives to keep a strong focus and not overwhelm teachers. It must capitalise on the two key drivers of improvement – instructional leadership by principals and supervisors, and the creation of a positive school climate in which teachers work together as a professional learning community18. The approach cannot be entirely driven from the national Ministry. Local government, teacher training institutions, universities and teacher professional associations must also take leadership responsibility. A change in teacher behaviour will not come as a result of national regulation without effective bottom-up support and initiative.
References
1 Ministry of Education and Culture (June 2013): Curriculum Development 2013. Slide No 6.
2 Indonesian Ministry of Development Planning/National Development Planning Agency (BAPPENAS) Republic of Indonesia (2010) Medium Term Development Plan (RPJM) 2010–2014. Book 2, Chapter 2: Socio-Cultural and Religious Affairs Development.
3 Hattie, J. (1999) Influences on student learning. Inaugural Lecture, University of Auckland. Accessed 10/01/2010 at http://www.education.auckland.ac.nz/uao/home/about/staff/j.hattie. Reported in Ali, M et al (2011) Quality of Education in Madrasah: Main Study. The World Bank Office Jakarta.
4 Ali, M. et al (2011) Quality of Education in Madrasah: Main Study. The World Bank Office Jakarta.
5 Shaeffer, S. (2014). BOS Training: Its implementation, Impact, and Implications for the Development of Indonesia's Education System— An Independent Review. Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Australian Government. Online publication. http://www.aid.dfat.gov.au/publications.
6 Masters, Geoff. N. (2013). Australian Education Review: Reforming Educational Assessment – Imperatives, principles and challenges. Australian Council for Educational Research. ACER Press. Australia.
7 Baartman, L. K. J., Bastiaens, T. J., Kirschner, P. A., & Van der Vleuten, C. P. M. (2007). Evaluation assessment quality in competence-based education: A qualitative comparison of two frameworks. Educational Research Review, 2, 114-129.
8 OECD (2013) PISA 2012 Results: What Students Know and Can Do: Student Performance in Mathematics, Reading and Science. Vol 1. PISA OECD Publishing.
9 Education Sector Analytical and Capacity Development Partnership. ACDP (2013): Support to Basic Education Minimum Service Standards Planning and Monitoring. Draft Report of 2103 Survey of MSS. February 2014.
10 OECD (2013) PISA 2012 Results: What Students Know and Can Do: Student Performance in Mathematics, Reading and Science. Vol 1. PISA OECD Publishing.
11 Suryahadi, A. and Sambodho, P. (2013) Assessment of Policies to Improve Teacher Quality and Reduce Teacher Absenteeism. Working Paper. The SMERU Research Institute. Jakarta, Indonesia.
12 UNCEN, UNIPA, SMERU, BPS and UNICEF (2012) A Study on Teacher Absenteeism in Papua and West Papua. The SMERU Research Institute, Badan Pusat Statistik and United Nations Children’s Fund.
13 American Chamber of Commerce in Singapore (AmCham) and US Chamber of Commerce (2013) The2014 ASEAN Business Outlook Survey. Accessed from: www.amcham.or.id/amcham-updates/4266-asean-business-outlook- survey-2014.
14 Heckman, J. and Kautz, T. (2013) Fostering and Measuring Skills: Interventions that improve Character and Cognition. NBER Working Paper Series. National Bureau of Economic Research. Cambridge MA.
15 OECD (2013) PISA 2012 Results: What Students Know and Can Do: Student Performance in Mathematics, Reading and Science. Vol 1. PISA OECD Publishing.
16 Fullan, M. ed. (2009). The Challenge of Change. Corwin. California. USA.
17 Education Sector Analytical and Capacity Development Partnership, ACDP (2013): Report of the Findings of the Principal and Supervisor Competency Baseline Study. Summary Report.
18 Sammons, P. and Bakkum, L. (2011) Effective Schools, Equity and Teacher Effectiveness: A Review of the Literature.
Profesorado. Vol 15, No 3.