The Education and Culture Ministry says it will further reduce the number of schools slated to introduce its new curriculum this year.

Only 6,401 schools would implement the new curriculum on a trial basis when the new school year started on July 15, Education and Culture Ministry spokesperson Ibnu Hamad said on Wednesday.

The number is less than the target of 32,000 schools that was set after an initial target of 102,053 elementary, junior high and senior high schools was deemed unfeasible due to a lack of classrooms and practice time for teachers.

Ibnu said that the pilot program would only involve students in the first, fourth, seventh and 10th grades in schools adhering to high standards or with superior performance.

'The ministry decided to implement the curriculum only at former RSBI [international-standard pilot project] schools and schools with good accreditation,' Ibnu told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday. 'They are schools that have a sufficient number of teachers and good infrastructure and facilities.'

Ibnu said that despite scaling back the pilot program, the ministry would continue plans to introduce the curriculum to all schools by 2015.

'We will improve facilities and fill in teacher shortages while continuing to implement the curriculum in schools that are ready,' Ibnu said.

One observer has said that the scaled-back pilot program showed that the ministry had already effectively failed to implement the curriculum.

'The ministry has a reverse way of thinking,' Retno Listyarti, the secretary-general of the Indonesian Teachers Union Federation (FSGI), said. 'What should be done first is ensuring that all provinces have an even distribution of good quality teachers and facilities and not changing the curriculum.'

Retno said that the ministry had again discriminated against schools in remote areas and failed to give priority to schools that lacked a sufficient number of teachers and acceptable infrastructure.

'The ministry should have just admitted that they have failed to implement the curriculum and that this was just a trial run,' Retno said. 'However, even if this is just a trial run, it will be an unfair one, as they have excluded schools in
remote areas.'

The revised curriculum has been a target of criticism, as it integrates science with civic education and religion.

Teachers' representatives have demanded that the ministry conduct a trial before implementing the new curriculum, saying that teachers were still in the dark over the details of the initiative.

Activists have also expressed concerns on the Rp 2.49 trillion (US$255.9 million) allocated to implement the new curriculum.

Education and Culture Minister Mohammad Nuh said that the budget allocated for the curriculum this year would be reduced to Rp 800 billion.

'The number of targeted students and teachers is decreased, so the budget allocation will also be reduced,' he said.

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