Better Curriculum for a Better Indonesia

Better Curriculum for a Better Indonesia

By Buyung A. N. Sudrajat and Syaifurrohman

Universitas Siswa Bangsa Internasional

To change the national education curriculum is not as simple as winding up a clock. It needs a lot of consideration, but it would seem that it is not the case in Indonesia. Education is now mired in controversy because of the promulgation of the decree of changing the national curriculum Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan (KTSP) into Curriculum 2013 by the Ministry of Education and Culture. It has been announced and decided by Komisi X of the House of Representative on May 27^th, 2013 that the Curriculum 2013 will be implemented on 2013/2014 academic year starting from July 15^th, 2013 (detik.com, 2013). The implementation of Curriculum 2013 has been agreed by 6 factions and with 3 factions reject the decision. Curriculum 2013 will be implemented in 6.235 schools ex RSBI and schools with an A accreditation. This change will bring many improvement to education in Indonesia since Curriculum 2013 has many strengths. However, out there are so many teachers, education practitioners, and might be parents also who doubt the new curriculum. This article try to point out the positive sides of Curriculum 2013 such as concise in the content, focusing on developing students’ characters based on the nation’s core values and social norms, a holistic assessment that represent the behavioural, skills, and knowledge, and giving an opportunity to students to develop their own potential.     

More Concise, More Effective

            The content of KTSP are too heavy but the covered material is not deep enough. Based on the data analysis from Ministry of Education and Culture (2012) the content of KTSP is too heavy, it shows from the number of subjects and materials in which the coverage and level is not appropriate even exceed students’ age development. This problem try to be solved by some strategies that is implemented in Curriculum 2013. In the Curriculum 2013 the content is more concise and more effective. It can be seen from the deduction of the subjects in elementary and junior high with purpose to more focus on the subject that students need to get at their level. Moreover, based on the analysis from Ministry of Education and Culture (2012) the ideal content of a curriculum should be relevant with the needed competency, using essential material, and appropriate with the students development. The implementation can be seen from the adjustment of subject in elementary school and junior high school.    

Nurturing and Developing Students’ Characters

As we know Indonesia is a country which always keeps its core value and social norms, but now days students at school often act contradictorily such as do not respect teacher, break the rules, and do negative actions which are contradictory with nation’s core value. The solution for decrease those problems are curriculum 2013. Curriculum 2013 is the way for establishing the future generations who have a good character.  Therefore in the curriculum 2013 the basic competence focus on how students apply the core value such as honest, discipline, responsible, well mannered, friendly with the environment, mutual aid, peaceful and cooperative. Those values are expected can be the foundation for the students and they could apply in the community.

Holistic Assessment

Other strength of curriculum 2013 is about the assessment. Curriculum 2013 comes with holistic assessment that address all the aspects of learning which are behavior, skill and knowledge. All subjects in Curriculum 2013 system apply the students’ assessment which refers to those aspects. The students do not only get the knowledge of learning but they also get how to have good personality, strong personal belief, and confidence when they are assess by the teacher. The assessment in curriculum 2013 also attracts the students in establishing their skill in observing, asking, trying, reworking, creating reason, and creating toward their assessment process. So, through students’ assessment system in curriculum 2013, students do not only come with the knowledge of the process in understanding the material of learning process, but also students masters the skill process and behavior process in doing assessment.

Developing Students’ Potential

            Curriculum 2013 provides students an opportunity to develop and maximize their potentials. According to Pingree (2007), “education should carry out the spirit of liberalism in which each individual can develop their potency and (that) education is specific experiences - especially those that ask of students greater and more intense involvements, experiences where they encounter their own privilege as learners.” Curriculum 2013 reflects the spirit of liberalism as seen in the inclusion of compulsory subjects and elective classes. This kind of system can enables the students to choose the subject they want to pursue based on their interesting and ability dovetailed with basic knowledge in religion, first language, citizen education, etc.

            Curriculum 2013 is designed to develop Indonesia’s young generation to have good character, strong sense of norms and moral values which they can apply in real-time contexts. Each perspective in education has their strength and weaknesses. The best education can be achieved by combining and maximizing all components in the education itself for a better Indonesia.

Selected Bibliography:

Indonesia, M. o. (2013, March 23). kemendikbud.go.id. Retrieved from kemendikbud.go.id: http://downloads.ziddu.com/downloadfiles/20958865/DRAFTKURIKULUM201313NOVPDF.pdf

Iqbal, M. (2013). Tok! DPR Setujui Kurikulum Baru Dimulai Tanggal 15 Juli 2013. Retrived from http://news.detik.com/read/2013/05/27/225358/2257459/10/tok-dpr-setujui-kurikulum-baru-dimulai-tanggal-15-juli-2013 on May 31^st, 2013

Pingree, S. E. (2007). Bringing Theory to Practice & Liberal Education: My Perspective. Liberal 

              Education, 93(1), 32-35. Retrieved from

http://search.proquest.com/docview/209824077?accountid=108784.