T

he Education and Culture Ministry’s director general for secondary education, Hamid Muhammad, said the implementation of the new national curriculum, which is scheduled to begin on July 15, may be postponed.

 He said House of Representatives’ Commission X overseeing education and sports had not approved the revised budget allocated for the new curriculum.

“We hope that the House will immediately discuss and approve the budget. Without the house’s approval, the program will be late,” Hamid said on Thursday as quoted by kompas.

The house had previously approved a budget allocation of Rp 2.49 trillion (US$255.9) for the implementation of new national curriculum this year.

This figure was reduced to Rp 684.4 billion when the ministry reduced the number of schools that would introduce the new curriculum, from the initial target of 102,053 elementary, junior high and senior high schools, to 32,000.

The ministry said that the pilot program, which will only involve students in the first, fourth, seventh and 10th grades, would complicate the implementation and teachers’ training in schools in remote areas that had limited classrooms and educators.

Therefore, they intended to first improve the facilities and fill in teacher shortages at schools in remote areas while continuing to implement the curriculum in schools that were ready, meaning schools that had high standards and superior performance.