T

he Education Agency has expressed its support for the central government'€™s decision to cancel the 2013 national curriculum, announcing that most schools in Jakarta are not ready to implement it.

Education Agency head Lasro Marbun said at City Hall on Monday that he was thankful for the decision made by Culture and Elementary and Secondary Education Minister Anies Baswedan.

'€œI have been critical of the curriculum, saying that it needs evaluation as the decision to implement it was made hastily,'€ he said.

Lasro said the infrastructure and resources required for the optimal implementation of the curriculum were not available.

'€œTeachers, for example, are still confused about how to implement it as only 15 percent out of 26,000 teachers in Jakarta received training,'€ he said.

Lasro added that the distribution of textbooks was late and insufficient. '€œSome of the books also use inappropriate language,'€ he said.

The agency head said the education ministry had never evaluated the curricula before the 2013 curriculum. He said, for example, the government did not have any idea about what needed to be changed from the 2006 curriculum when it designed the new one. '€œThey do not even have a procedure for evaluation,'€ he said.

Lasro said the scoring system used in the 2013 curriculum was also complicated. '€œThere is peer evaluation where students evaluate their own friends. It is so subjective,'€ he said.

He added that it would not be easy for school children to be objective when evaluating their classmates. His agency was even still educating teachers not to be subjective, he went on.

Lasro said that based on data he received, at least 2,058 public elementary schools and 755 private elementary schools had been using the curriculum for a semester. Meanwhile, 72 public and private elementary schools, 30 public and private junior high schools, 55 public and private vocational schools and 117 public senior high schools had been using the 2013 curriculum for three semesters.

Lasro said the schools that had implemented the curriculum for at least three semesters would continue to do so until the end of the school year. '€œHowever, the 2013 curriculum will be evaluated and changed,'€ he said.

Lasro said a small number of the schools whose teachers had been trained well generated good results with the 2013 curriculum. '€œThe academic scores were quite good,'€ he said.

He said the agency was still collecting valid data for private senior high schools that used the 2013 curriculum.

Anies has previously said that the ministry would drop the much-criticized 2013 national curriculum and has ordered schools in the country to revert to the 2006 curriculum.

The minister said the decision was made after a thorough review of the 2013 curriculum conducted by a team that he commissioned.

Anies also decided that 6,221 schools that have used the curriculum for the past three semesters could continue according to new guidelines, while more than 100,000 schools were required to return to the 2006 curriculum in the next semester.

Federation for Indonesian Teachers Associations (FSGI) secretary-general Retno Listyarti said her organization had previously demanded that the 2013 curriculum be scrapped.

Retno said it should be evaluated comprehensively. She also hoped that schools would use the 2006 curriculum as teachers and students were familiar with it.

'€œCurriculum changes confuse students. Many students complained about the 2013 curriculum,'€ she said.

Retno said teachers were also not ready as many of them received only five days of training on the new curriculum.