Turning muddy ground into a respected high school

Erwida Maulia ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Denpasar   |  Fri, 05/02/2008 1:45 PM

State high school SMAN 4 Denpasar, Bali, was stuck with a muddy schoolyard and was not at all a favorite of junior high school graduates when it opened in early 1980s.

"Our schoolyard was muddy, full of holes, and our students were those who failed admission tests at other high schools in Bali," the school's head of research and development division, Anak Agung Ketut Sujana, recalled.

Now the school has made a big leap, with a nice school building to study in and a top ranking in terms of academic achievements among other high schools not just in Bali, but throughout the country.

It ranked eighth for National Exam (UN) scores in both science and social science nationwide in 2007 and, said Ketut, 100 percent of its graduates have passed the admission test for state universities (SPMB) every year in the last few years.

Not satisfied with local and domestic achievements, SMAN 4 Denpasar is also moving forward with a number of international achievements.

In 2007 alone, it won a bronze medal in the Asian Physics Olympiad and an Honorable Mention at the International Mathematics Olympiad.

Earlier, it brought home a gold medal for Scientific Report at the Asia-Pacific Youth Science Festival in Beijing and two bronze medals in two International Physics Olympiads -- in London and Taiwan -- as well as some other international awards.

What turned the school into what it is now, said Ketut, is a culture of cooperation and high discipline that its founding principal instilled in both the teachers and the students.

"For example, every Saturday we teachers and students used to work together to make the muddy ground in our school solid. We've been preserving the culture of cooperation and discipline ever since," Ketut said.

Now SMAN 4 Denpasar is continuously climbing to the top, with a number of favorite programs launched by the current principal, I Wayan Rika, soon after he took over the school in 1998.

The programs have helped a lot of its teachers and students master English and computers and become Internet literate.

"We have a total of seven special programs, including the Remedial and Enrichment Program, in which students of all grades take the SPMB exercises regularly every week, and the Quality Improvement Program, in which we established various study clubs to help our students shine in international Olympiads," said Ketut.

Then there is also the E-Learning Program for teachers and students, in which they learn to use computers and the Internet, and apply it in daily study activities.

For teachers and administration staff, the school has launched the English Program, through which they are sent to English language courses, and the Human Resources' Quality Improvement Program to enhance their quality.

While first-year students pay visits to state universities to help them determine their studies after graduating, the teachers are sent to neighboring countries like Malaysia and Singapore to learn from education systems there under the Comparative Study Program.

All these programs surely cost a lot. According to Ketut, the school gets most of the funds from the students' parents in the form of school fees, which amount to some Rp 200,000 (US$21.70) per student monthly.

However, the higher-than-average school fees compared with other state-owned high schools across the country does not mean that SMAN 4 Denpasar rejects students from low-income families.

"We provide scholarships for brilliant but poor students through our Scholarship Program," said Ketut.

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