Vice President Boediono instructs minister to implement 2013 curriculum

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Vice President Boediono ordered Minister of Education and Culture Mohammad
Nuh to prepare well curriculum 2013 so that it could be implemented on time in July.
"The Vice President responded positively about the 2013 curriculum development and asked me to continue
and prepare it optimally," Minister Mohammad Nuh said in the Vice President Office on Thursday.
According to Nuh, the Vice President said the implementation of the curriculum can be a great momentum for
the improvement of the national education.
The Vice President also said that the curriculum implementation should not diminish the public trust about the
course of study, Nuh said.
Mohammad Nuh together with Deputy Minister of Education and Culture Musliar Kasim met the Vice
President to report the latest update of the 2013 curriculum development.
On the occasion, the Minister also reported the preparation of books as reference materials used in the
Elementary School, and Junior and Senior High Schools that meet the 2013 curriculum.
The books for the 2013 curriculum were ready to be printed and be distributed after some revisions, Minister
said.
The government would welcome any constructive criticism and suggestion from anyone about the 2013
curriculum, Nuh said.
There are four months to improve the curriculum if needed before it is implemented in the new school year
starting on July 15," Nuh said.
(Uu.A059/A014)

Indonesian Teachers’ Union Speaks Out Against New Curriculum

Practitioners and experts expressed criticism toward the new school curriculum set to be implemented in July
next year, saying that the plan will only cause problems for teachers and students.
The Ministry of Education has argued that the current curriculum is putting too much strain on students, and
that it’s looking to limit the subjects taught in elementary schools to just six, eliminating science, social studies
and English.
The new curriculum would contain religion, nationalism, Indonesian language, math, art and sports.
the Indonesian Teachers Union Federation (FSGI) also criticized the elimination of Information Technology
and Communication (TIK), a subject that was recently created by the government.
“There are a lot of candidate teachers for the TIK undergoing training. What will happen to them now? Has
the government thought [the new curriculum] through?” said FSGI secretary general Retno Listyarti on
Sunday.
Retno also said that the new curriculum has not taken into account the fate of many science, social studies and
English teachers at elementary schools.
Although she acknowledges that younger students should not be forced to spread their attention over an
expansive range of subjects, Retno said science and social studies should be taught starting at the fourth grade.
The ministry earlier said that elementary students can still study basic science and social studies, adding that
they would be integrated into Indonesian-language lessons.
Education and Culture Minister Mohammad Nuh said elementary school students will still be taught the
sciences. They just won’t be curriculum subjects on their own, he said.
“The subjects will be integrated, not eliminated. Therefore, IPA [science] and IPS [social science] will always
be included in the elementary school curriculum,” Nuh said recently.
However, experts doubted the plan’s logic.
“How are [teachers] supposed to integrate science in Bahasa Indonesia lessons?” Retno said. “It seems like the
government hasn’t thought this [curriculum] through.”
The ministry has also proposed a credit system for senior high schools which, according to Retno, would make
certain subjects more popular than others.
If the credit system is enforced, “then what about the National Examination? How do you determine which
subjects to be tested?” she said.
Despite claiming that the new curriculum would mean less of a burden for the students, the ministry has also
decided to increase the school hours to 38 per week to 32.
“This will mean that children will have to eat lunch at schools while most of the food at schools are not
healthy to consume. Besides, children will get bored spending a lot of time in class,” Retno said.
The new curriculum sparked controversy and polarized the nation, with proponents of the plan arguing that
their children had long felt overburdened by the curriculum.
But opponents of the plan argued that it would make Indonesians less competitive in the globalized market and
discriminate against those who could not afford to send their children to private English and science tuition
centers.
After weeks of criticism, the Education Ministry recently announced that English language lessons will not be
scrapped completely but would be offered as an elective subject or integrated into the six mandatory subjects.
Jimmy Paat from Jakarta State University, however, is more concerned with the fact that the government
keeps changing the curriculum.
“Indonesia’s [education system] is lagging behind neighboring countries like Singapore and Malaysia ... but
the solution is not to change the curriculum,” he said.
The government has requested Rp 171 billion ($18 million) to develop and implement next year the national
school curriculum, which experts say could be used to address the discrepancy in the numbers of quality
teachers between major cities and remote areas of the country.
“The most important thing is to fix the teachers’ education system at universities so by the time they graduate
they are ready to implement any kind of curriculum,” Jimmy said.
“The bottom line is changing the old curriculum with the 2013 curriculum is oversimplification. The problem
is much more complex ... so this [curriculum] is not the answer we are seeking for.”
Retno also said the government should improve the quality of teachers rather than merely create a new
curriculum.
“Training teachers is a long process,” she said, adding that most teachers will not be ready to implement the
new curriculum in seven months.
Nuh, however, said that the new curriculum, which meets the demands of the new era, was necessary to
improve the quality of national education.
He added that the new curriculum would be tested in a number of regions. South Sumatra is the second
province for the public test of the curriculum after Yogyakarta.
KPK
Indonesia's Corruption Eradication Commission (Indonesian: Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi) (abbreviated
KPK) is a government agency established to fight corruption. As of 2012, its chairman is Abraham Samad,[1]
and its deputy chairman is Bambang Widjojanto.
Background
Anti-corruption efforts began in Indonesia in the 1950s. Following strong criticism of corruption at the
beginning of the New Order regime in the late 1960s a Commission of Four was appointed by president
Suharto in 1970.[3] The report of the commission noted that corruption was "rampant" but none of the cases it
said were in need of urgent action were followed up. Laws were passed in 1999 giving the Police and
prosecution service the authority to investigate corruption cases.
In 2006, the Indonesian Constitutional Court found sections of current anti-corruption legislation to be
unconstitutional. As a result of this decision, at least crucial parts of the existing law will become invalid on 19
December 2009. The Anti-Corruption Court will disappear. This impending deadline provides Indonesian
legislators with the opportunity not only to ensure the continuation of anti-corruption law, but also to improve
it. But the legislation proposed so far would reduce prosecutorial capacity and weaken anti-corruption
institutions rather than strengthen them.
When considering what reform is necessary, legislators need to evaluate the current laws and institutional
frameworks. An important part of these frameworks are organisations like the Corruption Eradication
Commission (KPK), which has become central to anti-corruption activities in recent years. KPK prosecutors
have chased down members of the Indonesian Electoral Commission (KPU) who improperly used
departmental funds in their preparations for the 2004 national elections. They have also held politicians from
Aceh to Papua accountable for misuse of their positions, including Al Amien Nur Nasution, a former member
of the national parliament who was imprisoned for eight years on bribery charges.
The current draft legislation incorporates neither support for effective anti-corruption measures nor legal
protection for an accused corrupter. These limitations pose serious risks both to the future of campaigns
against corruption in Indonesia and to publicly elected officials.

Achievement
The work of the KPK is a source of continuing controversy in Indonesia. The commission is careful, but
sometimes quite aggressive, in pursuing high profile cases. For example, in reporting on the activities of the
KPK, one foreign observer noted that the commission has "confronted head-on the endemic corruption that
remains as a legacy of President Suharto’s 32-year-long kleptocracy. Since it started operating in late 2003,
the commission has investigated, prosecuted and achieved a 100-percent conviction rate in 86 cases of bribery
and graft related to government procurements and budgets."[8] To display once more its resolve to crack down
on graft suspects, the KPK named on December 7, 2012, both brothers of Indonesian socialite Rizal
Mallarangeng, Indonesia's Sports Minister Andi Mallarangeng and Fox News consultant Choel Mallarangeng
suspects in a multi-million-dollar corruption case, in the latest scandal to hit the President Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono's ruling party ahead of Indonesia's 2014 Presidential election. Mallarangeng is the first minister to
resign on graft allegations since the KPK began operating in 2003.[9][10]
KPK public education division official Budiono Prakoso said in December 2008 that because of its limited
manpower and resources, of some 16,200 cases reported to the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK),
only a small number had been dealt with.[11] A large number of the solid reports informed the KPK of alleged
cases of corruption and misuse of budget funds by government agencies at national and regional levels. "The
main problem is the political will of the government at regional and national levels. Political will remains low.
Everything is still at a lip-service level," he said.
NGO activitists often urge the KPK to be more aggressive in its work. For example, Bali Corruption Watch
(BCW) head Putu Wirata Dwikora asked the KPK to investigate corruption cases in Bali. He lamented the
commission's practice of handing over corruption cases in Bali to the local prosecutors office for further
investigation. "The KPK should be directly involved in investigations to create a deterrent effect," Putu
said.[11]
On the other hand, the success of the KPK in using controversial tools like warrantless wiretaps, and its focus
on high-level targets like "businessmen, bureaucrats, bankers, governors, diplomats, lawmakers, prosecutors,
police officials and other previously untouchable members of Indonesian society," has led to something of a
backlash. There have been reported attempts to undermine the Commission in Parliament.[12]
Globalization marginalizes the poor

Positive:
1. The poor are being marginalized. Globalisation is a means for exclusion, deepening inequality and
reinforced division of the world into core and periphery: it is a new form of Western imperialism which
dominates and exploits through TNC capital and instrumental global governance such as the World Bank
and IMF.
2. Globalisation has intensified global and national inequality. There is an increased economic and social gap
within countries and between countries, the richer are becoming richer and the poorer are becoming poorer.
Globalisation is an uneven process causing world fragmentation. There has been increasing inequality in
trade too, resulting in the amplification of the trade gap. Through increasing globalisation the value of
world trade is 17 times greater than 50 years ago, but Latin America’s share has fallen from 11% to 5% and
Africa’s from 8% to 2%. The terms of trade have increasingly moved against LEDCs and their poor.
3. Globalisation exploits LEDCs and their poor through TNCs. The World Guide (known as the Third World
Guide) says that globalisation is a ‘euphemism for transnationalisation’ - the spread of powerful companies
over the globe, wherever suits corporate interest best.
4. Increased global integration means that poorer countries become more vulnerable to world financial
markets. The East Asian Crisis was a direct result of globalisation and resulted in intensifying poverty. The
crisis shows that even the strongest developing states are at the mercy of global economic forces that serve
the interest of the dominant capitalist powers. Globalisation also meant that there was a speedy transition of
the crisis to the other East Asian countries - the ‘contagion effect’ - having devastating human
consequences.The benefits of the global market accrue to a relatively small proportion of the world’s
population. The stronger become stronger and the weak become weaker.
5. Globalisation is a form of disempowerment. Outside interference of the World Bank and IMF has made
LEDCs economies worse and has constrained the development strategies that nation-states may pursue.
International negotiations to reduce and eliminate foreign debt have led to increasing exports of capital and
the further indebtedness of the countries affected.

Negative

1. North-South differences are being eroded. Globalisation is a progressive force for creating global
prosperity. Through free trade and capital mobility, globalisation is creating a global market civilisation in
which prosperity, wealth, power and liberal democracy are being diffused around the globe.
2. Globalisation has increased world prosperity and organisational efforts to stabilise the world economy have
significantly improved. By historical standards global poverty has fallen more in the last 50 years than in
the past 500, and the welfare of people in almost all regions has improved significantly over the past few
decades. Globalisation will bring about the end of the ‘Third World’.LEDC’s fall in their share of world
trade can be attributed to the internal economic, social and political conditions in individual countries.
3. Globalisation promotes development in LEDCs as well as spreading the technology and knowledge of the
MEDCs.There is some evidence to suggest that those countries largely by-passed by globalisation are
amongst the poorest.
4. Globalisation has brought about huge benefits. The emergence of a single global market, the principles of
free trade, capital mobility and global competition has allowed the diffusion of prosperity, wealth and
power and these aspects of globalisation are the harbingers of modernisation and development. New
opportunities and possibilities have been opened up. On the contrary, globalisation was the very force that
led to the successful development of Eastern Asia and its ‘economic miracle’.Far from making LEDCs
more vulnerable, increasing global integration means that there are better organisational structures in place
to deal with world political, economic and social problems including those associated with natural hazards.
5. Global market civilisation has been reinforced by the policies of the major institutions of global economic
governance, namingly the IMF, World Bank and the G7. Global governance The World Bank restructured
LEDCs economies in SAPs (Structural Adjustment Programmes) manage indebted economies. Outside
intervention allows the dissemination of effective economic management strategies.
Vocational high school graduation should be given more opportunity in higher education level

A vocational high school is a public or private learning institution that differs from traditional secondary
schools in many ways. Students at vocational schools typically receive more hands-on, career-minded
education than students at traditional schools. Individuals are given the opportunity to explore and identify
potential career goals, and are provided with the resources needed to achieve them. Most vocational schools
recognize the importance of general academic studies as well as career preparation, and offer fully accredited
high school diplomas. Depending on a student's abilities and interests, a vocational high school can provide
several advantages.
At a vocational high school, a student can meet with trained guidance counselors and choose a program that
will best prepare him or her for college, post-secondary technical school, or a career immediately after
graduation. Counselors and school officials help students evaluate their goals and potential, and place them in
programs that best suit their interests. Vocational learning helps individuals learn the tools and techniques that
are vital to certain occupations, gain hands-on experience with different technologies and machines, and
develop problem-solving skills that will help them in any career path.
Many vocational high schools provide students with career preparation in health care, computer science,
education, business, and any number of highly specialized trades. Individuals have the opportunity to gain the
knowledge and experience necessary to become carpenters, electricians, machinists, painters, plumbers, or
other professionals. Some programs administer licensing or certification examinations in such programs that
allow students to become eligible for employment immediately after graduation.
While programs certainly emphasis career development, they do not fail to provide students with well-rounded
educations. A typical vocational high school program splits its curriculum between job-specific courses and
classroom instruction on more general subjects, including math, science, language arts, and physical
education. Vocational school students are usually required to complete classroom and homework assignments
very similar to those given at traditional high schools.
Another major advantage of a vocational high school is the availability of job placement resources. Guidance
counselors at vocational high schools typically have access to career information and a number of different
resources for students who want to find immediate work while attending courses or after they graduate. In
addition, many employers and labor unions are closely affiliated with vocational schools, and give preference
to job applicants who have completed such programs. With recommendation from guidance counselors and
teachers, many students are able to obtain paid apprenticeships or entry-level jobs with ease.

With the diverse skills acquired from their public school vocational programs, students are able to gain unique
benefits, such as:

 Hands on learning experiences

 Training from licensed vocational teachers
 Program-specific experiences and knowledge
 Safety, support, and remedial interventions and training
 Career guidance, placement support, and career explorations for incoming 9th graders
 Academic and vocational assessments
 A high school diploma and proficiency certificate
 Co-ops, internships, job shadows, and / or apprenticeships

In addition to the academic, social, and personal benefits of vocational opportunities, many leaders assert that
even non-vocational students can benefit from these programs. Specifically, as vocational programs often cater
to the needs of active and kinesthetic learners, students enrolled in a vocational class can engage with more
movement, hands on activities, and unique processes for enhancing their education. When these same students
are in a traditional, passive classroom setting, they often struggle to remain quiet and focused, potentially
resulting in an overall distraction for all students and the instructor. As a result, students who are provided
with the ability to choose their classroom and instructional method with greater freedom may be more able to
improve their overall learning experience and behavioral development.