Jakarta (Kompas: 13/09/06) The introduction of the “new curriculum” – called education unit curriculum – should be seen as an effort to uphold school and teachers’ autonomy. Teachers now should abandon their conservative working ethics and be more creative.

" The paradigm of teacher as a professional worker should be built. Teachers should no longer be a machine of bureaucracy,” said Agus Wahyudi, an activist from Banyumas Teachers Interaction Forum, Central Java, on Tuesday (12/9). 

Agus who is working as a teacher at the state senior high school SMA N 1 Purwokerto asserted that with the introduction of the new curriculum, teachers should abandon the old habits which make them rely too much on instructions and technical guidelines in the teaching and learning process. Teachers should be able to explore and to renew their knowledge to catch up with the development and the situation of the students they are facing.

“For instance, if the latest information on a subject should be taken from the internet, teachers should not be ashamed together with the students to seek for information in the virtual world and not relying solely on text books," said Agus Wahyudi. Agus sees a big difference – a better one – between the 2004 Competency-based Curriculum (KBK) — and the newly modified curriculum. In the KBK, basic competencies indicators were set by the central government. But now, the indicators are in teachers’ hands.

The problem is, Agus states, how could teachers explore the domain if hey have limited knowledge; moreover if they resist to change. According to him this is the biggest challenges teachers have to face.

Premature Policy

MH Aripin Ali, research and Development manager of the Family Care for Education (KerLip) Foundation does not share the same opinion. According to him, the implementation of the education unit curriculum is not as good as expected.

Teachers and schools’ unpreparedness has hampered the will to grant more autonomy to schools in determining the teaching materials adapted to local situation. The luxury offered by the new curriculum was finally sabotaged by the education bureaucracy and books publishers. Eventually, there is not much differences between the new curriculum and the KBK.

"The hope that schools along with the school committee would be able to develop their own curriculum is only a day dream. Only a few schools has the capacity to implement it,” said MH Aripin Ali.

Aripin believes that the fear that the “new curriculum” will become a premature policy is started to be proven. Teachers and schools’ lacking of capacity will adopt the model given by the National Education Standards Agency. "The role that teachers should play has been stolen by the education bureaucracy through school monitors or books publishers,” he states.