"Are the teachers prepared?"Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The Indonesian government is changing the national curriculum, and it is keen on implementing the new curriculum by 2013, said a parliament member.
"It is a big deal because the national curriculum is an important element of an education system," said Reni Marlinawati, the parliament`s commission X member of the United Development Party, on Thursday.
"Moreover, teachers have to understand the new curriculum before they start teaching. Are the teachers prepared?" she added.
She said that the government has to run counselling and technical guidance programmes for at least three years so that teachers understand the new curriculum completely.
"The government has to run such programmes because 2.8 million teachers have to understand the new curriculum," she stated.
Marlinawati pointed out that the new curriculum aims to ease the burden of students, by reducing the total number of subjects.
She mentioned that as per the new curriculum, students will be required to study Religion, Civics, Bahasa Indonesia, Sports, Math, and Arts and Culture.
"In addition, character education will be taught in primary schools so that students can focus on Math and Science at later stages," she noted.
Previously, Musliar Kasim, Deputy Minister for Education and Culture, stated that the ministry will conduct a survey to understand the public's views with regard to the new curriculum.
"We will be organising a road show to enlighten the public on the new curriculum. Then, the public can send their feedback through a designated website," he explained.
Kasim added that the road show will be held in five cities: Jakarta, Medan, Yogyakarta, Denpasar and Makassar. The road show will last for three weeks.
He hopes that the new curriculum will be released by February 2013.
Kasim said that two teams will be designing the new curriculum. The first team will be responsible for designing the curriculum for primary and high school levels, whereas the second team will be designing the curriculum for students enrolled in universities.
(Uu.J010/INE/B/KR-BSR/F001)
Editor: Priyambodo RH
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