No.6
May 2010

Inovasi Pendidikan
Media Komunikasi SMP dan MTs

Deputy Minister of Education, Fasli Jalal

Deputy Minister Pushes for DBE Dissemination

‘CONTINUOUS innovation in learning is essential,’ stated Prof. Fasli Jalal, Ph.D in his speech at the National Conference organized by USAID and the Government of Indonesia (GOI). According to the Deputy Minister of Education, Indonesian teachers talk 25 times as much as their students. In other countries, he said, teachers speak on average only 5 times as much. That is why we need to start using better approaches and practices to raise the quality of education in Indonesia so that the students have the opportunity to become active learners.

“We need to find new models and innovations and learn to understand these innovations. We need to identify which learning activities can be considered best practices based on our own experiences. These best practices must be contextual and relevant to the socio-cultural conditions where the ideas have been developed,” said the Deputy Minister.

When we have identified the best practices, we need to promote them among education stakeholders - starting with teachers, supervisors and district government staff, who should be supported by the province, the Ministry of National Education, the Ministry of Religious Affairs and the Coordinating Ministry for People’s Welfare. Although the locations of USAID assisted projects are limited in number, we need to keep developing the innovations in those places and present the ideas to new schools and districts or from the center to new provinces. “That is what we aspire to,” said the Deputy Minister enthusiastically.

Visit our website:
www.inovasipendidikan.net

DBE3 Partners at National Conference

On APRIL 7, 2010, USAID and the Government of Indonesia organized a National Conference involving all the education projects being funded by USAID. At the conference the Deputy Minister of National Education, Prof. Fasli Jalal, Ph.D said that the government valued the USAID programs and will encourage their sustainability and dissemination (see the article on the left).

During the conference, each of the USAID-funded programs had the opportunity to present their activities. DBE3 was represented by ibu Lia Windari, a teacher from MTsN Binjai, ibu Yani Herliani, the school principal and two students from SMPN 8, Bogor, and Bpk. Mansyur Eppe, a district facilitator from Pangkep, South Sulawesi. Outside the meeting room there were exhibitions from the USAID programs. The DBE3 exhibition included materials from all the program’s partner provinces. You can read more about DBE3 contribution to the national conference on pages 2 and 3.

Showcase Meetings in Districts

MOST DBE3 districts in six provinces have conducted district showcase meetings to show the progress made in both partner and non-partner schools which are implementing the DBE3 program. The participants included representatives of local government and schools not yet implementing the program. In several districts, the showcases were held the District Head’s or Mayor’s meeting hall and opened by the District Head or Mayor themselves.

There were exhibitions of students’ work, learning media, lesson plans and pictures of lessons taking place in the schools. There were also presentations by school principals, teachers, district facilitators and students about the changes that have taken in their schools. In some district there were also visits to partner schools to observe directly lessons taking place. You can read short reports of the showcases in two districts on page 5.

Impact on Students

DBE3 has conducted tests with students in 54 partner schools in 25 districts to assess their competencies in the subjects of Bahasa Indonesia, Mathematics and English. From 2009 to 2010 there was a significant increase in scores as can be seen in the chart on the right. You can read more about this on page 4.