Full day school is not ready to be applied in Indonesia

Our New Minister’s major plan ; major controversy.

Indonesian’s Education and Culture Minister, Muhajir Effendy, recently introduces his major plan. He wants to extend the teaching-learning process in school or as people know with the full day school policy. He does that in order to make Indonesian students become well educated and also make their parents less stressful (Mutohar, 2016). The policy makes a controversy between the politicians and also the public. There are so much pros and contras dealing with the minister’s major plan and most of people agreed to against the policy. In this case, schools in Indonesia are not ready for the full day school policy.

The first thing is, school’s facilities and infrastructures in Indonesia are still inadequate. There are still many schools whose building is unsuitable for teaching-learning activities (Donny, 2016). The ceilings are broken, they do not have a computer lab or even internet connection, and they do not have a complete library. The students are quite uncomfortable just to sit a whole day. They need to have clean bathrooms, and also a healthy canteen, because they have to spend 9 until 10 hours at school. Not all schools across Indonesia can facilitate students’ needs. Even, some schools in Indonesia have to share and divide the schools’ hours with another school because they do not even have a building to do the teaching-learning activities. Then, applying the full day school policy seems hard to be realized.

Also, the new policy is not in harmony with the existing educational traditional curriculum and methodology in Indonesia. The purposes of full day school policy are to build students’ character, and let the students to have time for improving their psychological health such as, exercising or even do the teaching-learning activities at a clean garden. However, many people believe that students have accustomed with Indonesia’s rigid curriculum and methodology. The teachers and the students tend to be more focused on preparing final examination which is not in a harmony with the new policy. Indonesia still applies the policy which makes the final examination is the determinant of educational success. Then, it makes students do not consider about developing their skill. It also makes the students accustomed to have an individual competition. As we know, it would be better if students train to work together and build collaboration.

Dealing with the new policy, most schools in Indonesia cannot afford another large budget. Schools have to provide more infrastructures to support the purpose of the full day school policy or even they have to re-build the building. The schools have to do that because the full day school policy focuses on building students’ character in a good and adequate environment. Also, with the additional hours, schools have to add more salary to the teachers, because they have to work more than usual. However, not all schools across Indonesia can afford a large budget as it needed. There are still a lot of schools which need much help. Even, some schools can afford to pay the teacher as well. This is why the new policy cannot be applied in Indonesia.

The major plan that the new Education and Culture Minister has is still cannot be applied in Indonesia. Those arguments above show that Indonesia is still not ready for a major change especially in the education system; even the purpose of the new policy is to make Indonesian students become well educated. Eventually, the government also still cannot fulfill the needs of the schools equally across Indonesia. Then, before the government decided to apply the new policy, they have to maximize the facilities to support the full day school policy.

REFERENCES

Donny, M. (2016, August 10)

                Full day school program, is not ready to applied. Red Rice Bali News. Retrieved October 4, 2016, from http://www.redricebalinews.com/index.php/read/2016/08/10/201608100001/Full-Day-School-Program-Is-Not-Ready-to-Applied.html

Mutohar, A. (2016, August 23).

            Why full-day school will not work in Indonesia? The Jakarta Post. Retrieved September 29, 2016, from http://www.thejakartapost.com/academia/2016/08/23/why-full-day-school-will-not-work-in-indonesia.html