Minister touts informal education

Erwida Maulia , The Jakarta Post , Bandung | Tue, 06/24/2008 10:01 AM | National

Community learning centers (CLC) could be a solution for those with no access to regular schooling, National Education Minister Bambang Sudibyo says.

Speaking at a seminar jointly organized by Indonesia's Education Ministry and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Bambang said 35 percent of the country's 230 million population were of school age and that Indonesia's "naturally fragmented" topography meant it was difficult for the government to reach them all.

"That's why we also take informal education very seriously," he said in his opening speech.

Since their introduction in the late 1990s, 5,000 CLCs (locally known by acronym PKBM) have been built in the country.

The minister said ideally 1,500 more would be built so that there would be one center for each of the country's 6,500 districts.

Bandung is hosting a five-day international seminar on CLCs from Monday to Friday.

Representatives from 24 countries in the Asia-Pacific region will attend the seminar to promote informal education and to discuss strategies to implement and manage the centers.

UNESCO launched the CLC project in 1998, having based its design on a strategy developed in Japan.

UNESCO-Bangkok director Sheldon Shaeffer said the project was expected to generate income, empower communities, promote health and gender issues and educate on sustainable development.

Similar projects have been successfully developed in many other countries, Shaeffer said.

Bambang said CLCs in Indonesia were aimed at providing early childhood education, improving literacy and that they would offer certificates equivalent to those of elementary and secondary school levels for school dropouts.

He said due to their flexibility, CLCs had been widely accepted by the country's underprivileged.

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