Learning is fun: By using local languages in class, children across Indonesia are able to learn better.

There is a quiet revolution going on in Indonesia’s education system and it is happening across the nation, in classrooms, in schools, on remote islands, in jungle river communities and in big cities.

The revolution has the potential to dramatically improve Indonesia’s human resource capabilities, which is a major priority for the economy.

Since Indonesia gained independence in Aug. 17, 1945, education has focused on a one-size-fits-all approach.

The aim was to ensure that every Indonesian citizen could speak the national language, that every citizen understood the national ideology of Pancasila and that every citizen could meet the standard requirements of literacy and numeracy.

Now there is a new agenda for education. The 21st Century demands not just uniformity, but creativity, problem solving and critical thinking; what the government calls as the higher order thinking skills (HOTS).

During a recent event at the Education and Culture Ministry, Totok Suprayitno, head of the research and development body, spoke about a creative educational movement that is emerging in Indonesia’s schools.

“The emergence of creativity in the teaching of our children is a break away from the shackles that had confined us. The rules about how to teach, that is what we must change. Don’t rely on habits so that it becomes a comfort zone,” Totok said during the event.

The event, held on March 20 to celebrate International Mother Tongue Day, was supported by the Innovation for Indonesia’s School Children (INOVASI) Program, which is a partnership between Indonesia and Australia. It began in 2016 and focuses on improving learning outcomes in literacy, numeracy and inclusion in primary schools.

Totok urged local governments to allow teachers to innovate. Too many strict rules and regulations inhibit innovation and improvement.

“We hope that this [INOVASI] movement will truly emerge from the bottom up. The actor in this drama of creativity is the teacher. Because of this, the INOVASI program is truly a learning process,” he said.

“The program is great because it leaves behind a legacy, a legacy that is spreading to all schools. This legacy does not take the form of buildings, or fancy teaching aids, it is in the minds that are freed to innovate.”

Nurdiana from Bima and Santi from East Sumba are two teachers who have become part of the movement and have been creating new approaches in their classrooms.

Nurdiana, affectionately known as Ibu Dian, has been teaching for 18 years in the district of Bima.

A graduate of the old teaching high school system, for the first 11 years she was an “honorary” teacher, earning just Rp 250,000 (US$17.50) per month.

In 2014, Dian became a tenured civil servant teacher and in 2017 she joined the INOVASI program. She wanted to improve the children’s literacy in her class. Most children start school without speaking Indonesian and this is a problem as the curriculum is in Indonesian.

The mentor: Nurdiana, also known as Ibu Dian, a school teacher who uses creative teaching methods to help her students learn.

“Where I teach, the children only speak the local Bima language,” Dian said.

“That’s my language and I teach in it. The children in early grades pick up the concepts faster when we use the Bima language. When I introduce new material, the children usually learn in local language for two or three days, sometimes up to five days — depending on the level of difficulty. After that I use Indonesian,”

“The children are really enthusiastic. They are really happy when I use the local language. I can’t really force them to use Indonesian in the text book at the beginning, anyway. So, I put that aside to start with —and I only introduce Indonesian when they really understand the concept in local language.”

Dian also likes to teach her students outside of the classroom to make them even more interested in learning.

“To be honest, it gets so dull in the school. I enter the children’s world; we learn while playing and I use the local language. I make teaching aids from the things they are familiar with every day. I make big story books, with big pictures, so we can read together. Then I make teaching aids based on the illustrations in the big books. I make it a game in the class, using those big books,” she said.

“So, it is not only a story time but also learning. Now, the lessons follow the children even after school time is over.”

Meanwhile, Santi began teaching in 2003. While teaching, Santi, who was only a graduate from senior high school back then, studied part time at a community college. At that time she earned just Rp 50,000 per month. Since May 2018, she has received a monthly salary of Rp 1,250,000 as an honorary district teacher.

Like Dian, Santi also used the local language approach to teach her students in Sumba. The reason is pretty much the same; the children in Sumba use the local language to communicate daily with their families and friends.

“In the past we used only Indonesian in the classroom but the children were confused —even more so with our local dialect. It’s different when we use the local language, the children are more active, more engaged and keen to learn,” Santi said.

“Using the mother tongue approach has had a huge impact on the children. The ones who were quiet began to open up and talk.”

Education and Culture Ministry Language and Book Agency head Dadang Sunendar said he supported what Dian and Santi did with their local language teaching methods because 79 percent of Indonesians communicate mainly in their mother tongue.

In addition, according to UNESCO, around 50 percent of school children in the world experience difficulty in understanding between their mother tongue and the common national language. Many of these children drop out before completing their schooling. This is not an insignificant issue.

Nevertheless, Dadang said that eventually the government wanted all children in Indonesia to be able to speak and communicate in Indonesian in the long run.

“In places where the community is not fluent in the national language, and is only familiar with local language, we need to remember that the law on the national education system permits the use of local language up to grade two or a maximum of grade three in primary school,” he said.

Mark Heyward is the program director of INOVASI

Teaching Ideas: Former Education and Culture Ministry undersecretary Fasli Jalal discusses the use of local languanges in educating children with teachers (left to right): Nurdiana of Bima, West Nusa Tenggara Susana; Santi of East Sumba, East Nusa Tenggara; Johnny Tjia from Yayasan Sulinama, and Petrus Lambe from the Suluh Insan Lestari (SIL).

— Photos courtesy of INOVASI.