Education in Indonesia: Is It Good or Does It Need to be Improved?

Having a good education system is a status that every country fights for. With a good education, a country will produce many intelligent individuals to help the development of the country. Indonesia is a country that is doing that fight, so here is the education in Indonesia.

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Current Education System in Indonesia

12 years is the minimum ideal duration for students to gain knowledge according to the education system in Indonesia. Those 12 years are divided into six years of elementary school, three years of junior high school or middle school, and three years of senior high school or vocational high school.

To enter an elementary school, students must be at least seven years old, although some schools also allow six-year-old kids. Before that, it is optional for children to experience preschool or kindergarten for several years to prepare for the world of education.

After finishing elementary school, students will learn more subjects in junior high school to gain more knowledge. During that period of education in Indonesia, students are also introduced to organizational activities and some extracurricular activities for more skill and passion development.

Lastly, students can pursue what they want to learn more in either senior high school or vocational high school. They may choose between natural science, social science, or language courses in senior high school. On the other hand, vocational high school provides ready-to-work skills like hospitality, engineering, and others.

Additionally, students can continue their studies at universities to get a degree. However, they can also pursue their career immediately if they want.

Good and Bad Things about Education in Indonesia

Source : Envato

There are things students and everyone else should be proud of about education in Indonesia. But still, there are also some that need to be changed to improve the quality of education.

Good Things

• Affordable Tuition Fees

Thanks to the government of Indonesia, tuition fees are not expensive or even free for some students, at least for public schools. It is because up to 20% of the country’s total State Budget is utilized merely for educational purposes. The government gives hundreds of trillion rupiahs to students in Indonesia.

• Transparent System

The system of education in Indonesia is transparent, which means that students’ parents can easily supervise their children’s in-class performance. With that, students can study at school and at home with their parents to improve their overall skills and knowledge.

• Experienced-made Curricula

For the sake of quality, education curricula must be developed by experts. However, there is nothing wrong with also involving some experienced professionals who know the actual in-field condition of the education. That is why both experts and teachers have been working together to create education curricula in Indonesia since 2013.

• Simpler Student Admissions

Previously, some schools had become favorites among students. Many students fought for a seat in a favorite school regardless of the distance from their address. Unfortunately, that made students who could only study at that school due to the location might not get a seat if the grade was not acceptable.

Thankfully, in recent years, a new admission system has been applied for education in Indonesia, allowing students to study based on age and domicile. As a result, every student can earn the knowledge they deserve as easily as possible.

Bad Things

• Uneven Spread of Teachers and Education Facilities

Indonesia is a huge country with plenty of remote areas. One of the most unfortunate things in those areas is the lack of education facilities. It is difficult for those areas to get proper education facilities like school stuff and school buildings that major cities have got.

Not only that, but teachers in Indonesia are also not well-spread. High-quality teachers only work at schools in the cities, so it is not enough to handle schools in other areas. It is also hard for teachers in those areas to improve their qualities as they are mostly underpaid.

• Too Much Theory

Despite being developed and created by experts and experienced professionals, Indonesia’s education curricula mostly still provide theories. It is only a rare occasion that schools make students develop their soft and hard skills, so many of them may struggle to find their dream jobs.

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With the current education in Indonesia, some things are already great for everyone, but some aspects still have room for improvement. It is the people's job, especially the government, to make Indonesia a better country for education than ever.