Parents now have a wide variety of choice when picking schools for their children, particularly with the presence of those offering international standard qualification. However, the growing number of such international schools is not on par with their quality. Do they really meet the required qualifications as an international standard school?
There have been many complaints over the quality of such international schools as their owners/operators have used the brand “international” to merely attract more and more students to enroll, but failed to meet the requirements set by the government.
Deputy National Education Minister Fasli Jalal confirmed such a situation. “Many parents have filed complaints against privately run international-standard schools, which charge skyrocketing admission and tuition fees, while the quality of the schools, their faculty and graduates turn out to be no better than regular national [schools],” he was quoted by this newspaper as saying Thursday.
There are a number of school categories based on its qualification: regular schools, model schools, national standard schools (SSN), international standard pilot-project schools (RSBI), international schools run by foreign countries, international schools run by private institutions and national plus schools.
We welcome the initiatives of any parties in this country to develop different categories of schools to give the people more choice. However, the liberty to establish such “special schools” should be followed up with the establishment of tighter government control on the quality of the schools based on their respective qualifications.
Regular monitoring is therefore important to force the schools to maintain their quality. The target of such monitoring should not only be schools run by private institutions, but also state schools, many of which have been offering international standard classes to the general public with school fees far higher than regular classes.
It is the job of every government to protect the public from false claim made by any school. Therefore, we support the government’s plan to re-evaluate the performance of all schools, which claim to meet the qualifications of an international standard school.
But at the same time we also warn the government against stepping too deeply into the schools’ internal affairs. As an example, we disagree with the government’s plan to require long-established international schools run by foreign countries to include civics and religion in their curricula.
We know that such schools have, since the beginning, been designed for children of expatriates living in this country. The government’s argument that Indonesian students also study in such school seems reasonable, but we know their number is very limited and if they are prohibited from studying in such schools, their parents can easily send them to study abroad.
To conclude, it is the task of all elements in this country to improve the quality of our education, which rank low even among Asian countries. Therefore, we appreciate the number of corporations that run schools, including those with international standards.
However, it is also unwise for the government to push certain schools, including state ones, to open the international standards of services in the absence of proper educational infrastructure and teaching staff who meet the requirements set for such schools. Besides, we need all categories of schools to serve society’s various demands.
