Page 7 - Country Paper e-book_Adisti

Part 3

In general, education in Indonesia, as a developing country, used to apply a “ top to
down” system. Idris (2002) stated that "...governments in DCs (Developing

Countries) tend to control education tightly. In some Developing Countries like
Indonesia, not only teachers but university and college faculty members of state

universities are employed as public servants and until the fall of Suharto's regime in

1998, all public servants were required to vote for the government party, Golkar.
Being public servants, teachers and faculty are therefore also subjected to a lot of

other rules and regulations. What to teach, how to teach, when to teach, what books
and materials to use and so on are all prescribed by the government.

... Centralized control is the norm and consequently devolution and empowerment

are disallowed, at a time when empowerment has been shown to be a basic
requirement for creativity and innovation, which in turn have also been shown to be

necessary in educational development.
...In line with that political philosophy comes the equally debilitating education

methodology. In such an environment a top-down, often one-way teaching
communication and teacher all-knowing situation is the only allowed

methodology….”

The top down system in education, especially dealing with curriculum, applied

National Curriculum, which is of course nation wide. Since all the governmental
systems were centralized, the government composed a fixed curriculum together

with its regulations and policies. They were applied in all areas of Indonesia.
However, Indonesia is an archipelago country, which creates diversity. This type of

curriculum, which was suitable for one area, did not always run well in other area.

Why? It is because each area has its own characteristics, has its own potencies,
which differs each other. Then, outputs of schools in Indonesia, applying the National

Curriculum, were not always relevant to the ones needed by the local industries. In

some areas, there was a link and match between the school‟s outputs and the
vacancies in industry. On the other hand, there were some gaps between them.

Then, we may conclude that the top down curriculum cannot always respond what
are needed by the local industry.

e-book country paper 7