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Issue of the day: Nuh: Students learn too many subjects
Pray and work: Students of Budi Utomo state junior high school in Central Jakarta gather for prayer ahead of the national exam
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Pray and work: Students of Budi Utomo state junior high school in Central Jakarta gather for prayer ahead of the national exam. Education and Culture Minister Mohammad Nuh recently said Indonesian studentsâ heavy school burden was the reason behind the governmentâs plan to merge school subjects in the next academic year. (JP/PJ Leo) (JP/PJ Leo)
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span class="inline inline-none">Pray and work: Students of Budi Utomo state junior high school in Central Jakarta gather for prayer ahead of the national exam. Education and Culture Minister Mohammad Nuh recently said Indonesian students' heavy school burden was the reason behind the government's plan to merge school subjects in the next academic year. (JP/PJ Leo)
May 5, online
Education and Culture Minister Mohammad Nuh has acknowledged that students have to learn too many subjects. Therefore, he said, the ministry was now preparing to merge five different subjects into just two main subjects.
He said that later the subjects of physics, biology and chemistry would be merged into natural science while geography and history would be merged into social science.
He said it was expected that the merger would help students be more focused when learning the subjects so that in the end they could have a better understanding.
To date, both junior and senior high school students are obliged to learn respectively 12 and 17 subjects. By comparison, their student counterparts in Australia only have to learn 9 or 10 subjects.
Your comments:
The minister is destroying the already beleaguered so-called education system. He is keen to merge subjects like physics, chemistry and biology, and others like history and geography.
I read chemistry at Edinburgh University. My subjects were physics, chemistry and mathematics. I doubt that any lecturer of one subject would be sufficiently conversant with the others to swap.
Even at school it doesn't make sense. There should be core teachers for core subjects and not a
mish-mash.
Indonesia needs educational excellence; a vision for the future for its children. It needs teachers unencumbered by agendas, dogma, fear and hatred. It won't happen like this.
Maurice Gold
Wouldn't that be the same? I mean students still need to learn biology and physic separately, the teachers would be different too, the text books also.
So to say that this 'merging' will help ease the burden of student ... how exactly?
Eisya A.
Too many subjects? That is one of most retarded statements I've heard. Basically you are indicating children now are dumber than previous generations?
Deddy K
I think the minister has failed and I could never support or agree with his move to change the curriculum. However, I can not take someone calling my religion rubbish. You can disagree or disapprove of it, but just keep it to yourself.
There's freedom of expression indeed, but you should consider other people's rights and refrain from talking down on a sensitive matter that people are free to choose such as religion.
And lastly, there's no proof that religion diminishes people's ability to think rationally.
Maybe it just applies to people with limited brain capacity. I am sure that there are quite a number of scientists in this world who believe in a religion of their choice.
Rio Rivai
