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n alliance of education experts filed a complaint with Governor Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo and Deputy Governor Basuki '€œAhok'€ Tjahaja Purnama, instead of the central government, against the 2013 curriculum, which they said was still confusing seven months after its implementation.

They said that they met the two Jakarta leaders and not Education and Culture Minister Mohammad Nuh not because Jokowi was considered a strong potential presidential candidate but mainly because the two were reformists and open to ideas that would help the nation develop.

Retno Listyarti, a member of the alliance, said the education experts had decided to meet the governor and the deputy governor because Jakarta was seen as a barometer in the implementation of national policies.

Itje Chodidjah, spokeswoman for the Education Reform Coalition, said after the meeting on Friday that the curriculum, which became effective in July 2013, was good in its goals but chaotic in its implementation.

Most teachers do not fully understand the curriculum'€™s goals and lack in training on how they should present the material to their students, she said,

'€œWe have received many complaints about the material. Too much material is sometimes unsuitable,'€ she said, adding that it was strange to hear teachers say that they did not understand the curriculum'€™s goals.

The new curriculum previously sparked strong criticism and opposition from many other education experts, teachers and parent associations in other regions, but the central government has yet to evaluate its implementation.

Itje cited an example that the government scrapped information technology and computer science yet knowledge about the subject was much needed by teachers and students in the learning process.

'€œHowever, training for teachers teaching IT and computer is not compulsory,'€ she said, adding that most teachers in remote areas were not computer or IT literate.

Itje also said learning about evaluations was another crucial issue as the evaluation system was new to most teachers as they had never been trained how conduct an evaluation.

The 2013 curriculum, as Nuh has said, should be appropriate for nationwide use as it was a revision of the 2004 and 2006 curriculums, which respectively were competence-based and school-based.

She cited that most teachers in remote areas had only begun to understand the 2006 curriculum but were now forced to follow the new one.

The new curriculum was implemented for students in the first and fourth grades of elementary school; in the seventh grade of junior high school, and the 10th grade of senior high school and vocational school.

Itje said that although the city administration could not change the policy as it was a product of the central government, it could do something extra like introduce training to achieve the curriculum'€™s goals.

Retno also said the group was aware that the new curriculum was a national policy, but the city administration could change some of the material to correspond to the real condition in the capital city under regional autonomy.