M

aria Magdalena decided early on that homeschooling was the best education she could give to her only son — a decision that has increasingly proved right amid the recent furore over the burden formal schools place on their students.

She and her husband, who live in Pluit, North Jakarta, decided to take the informal educational approach for their son, who is now 15. They employ a variety of learning methods to encourage his creativity and give him the freedom to pursue the subjects he is passionate about.

Maria said her son had never been enrolled at a formal school.

“In formal schools, my child would be preoccupied with the school’s requirements and strict schedule, whereas there are many subjects he doesn't like or finds boring. It was better that he used his time to explore his passions, talents and potential under the guidance of his parents who understand him,” Maria told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

Maria said that time management and scheduling were issues at the beginning, because she and her husband both work. Eventually, after working on developing good study habits, her son started learning independently.

The family also makes it a point to visit different regions across the archipelago so their son can experience Indonesia’s rich local customs and cultures firsthand — and without waiting for school holidays.

“Homeschooling gives us the freedom to use whatever learning method that suits our son’s needs and helps him study happily,” said Maria. She had also signed him up for a martial arts course so he could develop his social skills and make friends.

Child rights activist Seto Mulyadi recently brought the intensive scholastic culture into the media spotlight and suggested that the government cut the mandatory school days from five to six days a week at present to three days a week.

Seto argued that students were overburdened by an education system that focused on grades while overlooking the need to balance children's time exploring their unique interests and talents.

Anastasia Rima, the secretary-general of the Homeschooling and Alternative Education Association (Asah Pena), is another parent who opted to start homeschooling her two sons 12 years ago.

She said that homeschooling suited her sons' needs, as they could happily learn about the things they were  interested in. Her sons are now grown at 23 and 19, and are working in fields that best match their passions and talents.

Anastasia explained that parents could choose from three types of homeschooling, depending on their child's interests and their family's situation.

One was parental homeschooling, in which parents are the only teachers or learning facilitators. Another is group homeschooling, in which several parental homeschooling "units" learn together, and the last is community-based homeschooling, in which families refer to a homeschooling service for assistance in developing individual learning methods.

Anastasia noted that homeschooling was a steadily growing trend among families in Greater Jakarta. For example, Kultur Metamorfosa, a community-based homeschooling service she founded just last year had grown to more than 200 active members by this month. She added that two other homeschooling communities, Primagama Homeschooling and Homeschooling Kak Seto, had around 7,000 children combined.

While a key distinction of homeschooling is that it neither restricts nor obligates children to learn, parents need not worry about their homeschooled children's scholastic qualifications.

The 2003 National Education Law stipulates three different types of education across all levels — formal, nonformal and informal — and recognizes homeschooling as a type of informal education. Article 27 of the law also recognizes the outcomes of informal education as equivalent to the outcomes of formal and nonformal education if the student passes the standardized national exams.

The Education and Culture Ministry enacted a regulation on homeschooling in 2014. The regulation defines homeschooling as an educational method that is designed with an aim to maximally develop a child's unique potential and is delivered by the child's parents or relatives at home or other places outside a formal school.

Education observer Ravik Karsidi, formerly a rector of Sebelas Maret University (UNS) in Surakarta, Central Java, said that the growing trend in homeschooling should be taken as a wake-up call for evaluating the formal education sector.

“In my opinion, formal schools also need to reflect much on why so many students do not like [studying at school]. What is the reason behind that?" he said. "That is why [education minister] Nadiem Makarim is attempting to transform our school system, which is said to be too rigid, into — hopefully — a  better one. That is part of reflecting on our school system [to find] where improvements are needed."

Following his appointment as education and culture minister, Nadiem said one of his main objectives was to prompt a "cultural revolution," essentially, to change the ingrained Indonesian mindset that education was all about developing a successful career.

Child and adolescent psychologist Listiyo Andini of the University of Indonesia cautioned, however, that parents who provided homeschooling needed to fully develop their children's cognitive, emotional, intellectual and social capabilities.

She stressed that interacting with same-age peers was key to children's psychosocial development, and noted that children had other needs according to their developmental stage. For example, primary-level children needed to develop emotional skills like self-control, while secondary-level children needed to develop self-determination.  

As for Maria, she only has one wish for her son: “To live a happy life, have a job that aligns with his interests and mature to have a family [of his own].” (ydp)