What we are doing is to support the madrasah to gain the national standard."
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The Australian Government through Australian Aid (AusAID) has provided 500 million Australian dollars to support 1,500 Islamic schools in Indonesia to gain the national accreditation.

"We understand that 20 percent of children in Indonesia are educated in Islamic schools or `madrasah`, so it`s significant part of the Indonesian education. Importantly, there are parts of the system that needs to support so it can be accredited to the national system," said Australia`s Deputy Ambassador to Indonesia David Engel during the breaking of the fast dinner at Al Fauzain VI "Madrasah Ibtidaiyah" or elementary school in South Jakarta on Tuesday night.

According to Engel, the national accreditation for madrasah that to be gained through the education partnership with the Indonesian government would significantly raise the quality of Islamic schools and make possible of its students to have the same competency with the public schools.

"What we are doing is to support the madrasah to gain the national standard. So all students in Indonesia, and wherever students, can have the education that its diploma are nationally recognized," he said.

The AusAID`s Director of Education, Hannah Birdsey, said there are four programs in order to support the madrasah gain the national accreditation, namely through teachers` capacities training, increasing the learning and teaching mechanism process, gaining the curriculum standard, and improving the school`s infrastructures and facilities.

"We want to make sure that this partnership program will be right on target, so we choose the school selectively, besides to choose it directly from the Religious Affairs Ministry`s data," she said.

Through this partnership, Birdsey said about 72 percent of madrasah which has not yet been accredited would be able to accelerate their efforts to gain its national recognition.

The Head of Religious Affairs Office of South Jakarta, Kasa Sukarsa, said the AusAID had very selectively chose the madarasah to be supported between 2011 and 2016.

In South Jakarta alone, the Al Fauzain VI Madrasah Ibtidaiyah got ten thousands Australian dollars or Rp 90 millions to improve school`s facilities and increase the learning teaching mechanism process.

"From the profit point of view, the Al Fauzain which has six classes with only 85 students is obviously unprofitable that almost impossible to meet the national standard. Hence, this funds is very incredible and helpful to gain the accreditation," he said.
(T.A060/F001)

Reporter: Azi Fitriyanti
Editor: Priyambodo RH
Copyright © ANTARA 2013