B

span class="inline inline-left">Bake on Friday: Students, comprised of those with Down syndrome and other special needs, bake chocolate cakes in the Center of Hope in Sunter, North Jakarta. JP/Dina IndrasafitriPeople with Down syndrome in Indonesia are usually categorized under the term tuna grahita, which roughly translates as “absence of understanding”. In special schools, or SLB, tuna grahita is usually part of the C category, with A referring to the inability to see, B to the inability to hear and so on.

But parents of children with Down syndrome nowadays have other choice aside from enrolling their children in a special school to get formal education, especially after the Education Ministry issued the 2009 regulation on Inclusive Education.

According to the regulation, inclusive education is “a system that gives the chance to all participating in education with differences or special talents or potential to follow learning activities in an educational environment together with all others who are learning in general.”

“Anything that happens in the teaching and learning process should not eliminate a child’s right to participate [in the process],” said Praptono, head of the accreditation section at the ministry’s special education and special services in elementary education section.

However, he added that the detailed treatment given to these students with special needs was to be handled by the schools that carried out inclusive education.

“When a child has academic difficulties, it’s the system that should adjust to the need of that child,” Praptono said.

Special schools would play a role of providing pre-conditions, such as special skills or psychological readiness, for students before they enrolled in regular school, as well as playing the role of resource centers that provide teachers experienced in teaching students with special needs, as well as providing facilities and teaching aids to be used in regular schools.

A tuna grahita child learning in a regular school would learn with a curriculum modified to the child’s needs. In some cases, the school would use a thematic curriculum, which is guided by the ministry.

“For children with Down syndrome, there is no basic competence standard from the government. It is purely the teacher’s authority,” Praptono said.

In 2003 the directorate for elementary and middle education issued a request for each education agency at the regency or city level to choose at least one elementary school, one junior high school, and one high school or vocational school to become an inclusive school.

“It has to be done, because schools that are willing to accept children with special needs are actually opening up to new challenges. Logically, nobody would want to do that, but because of empathy and awareness, it has to be done. The implementation, in several regions, did materialize in designating [certain schools], but the designation was also without any coercion,” Praptono said.

According to data from the ministry, in 2011 there were around 1,680 special schools and 967 inclusive schools at the elementary and junior high level in Indonesia.

Several schools, however, still seem overwhelmed with their status of being an inclusive school.

The head of an elementary school in North Jakarta said the school currently had no teachers with the necessary skills to teach students with special needs.

One teacher, who has been assigned to teach several students with difficulties in learning, said that she had been to only one workshop about teaching children with special needs.

She gave those students extra lessons after school hours to help them keep up with their peers.

Several teachers in schools designated as inclusive said that they were not aware of what Down syndrome was.

Ayoh, who lives in South Jakarta, has decided to enroll her child, Nasya, in a regular elementary school in the same institution where Nasya went to kindergarten.

“At first I did some survey, I also considered home schooling. But the school encouraged me to try [the regular elementary school],” she said.

Nasya is currently in the second-grade, and during lessons she is usually accompanied with a “shadow” teacher to assist her.