According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD), in 2012 Indonesia ranked 64 out 65 participating countries in the
Programme for International Students Assessment (PISA) examinations,
which assessed 15-year-old students on their knowledge and skills in subjects
relevant to their future lives (OECD, 2012). This ranking led to a call for further
reforms in education.
The government renewed its mission to reform the curriculum, improve the
quality of teachers and raise students’ competencies. Concerning curriculum
policy, in 2014 the government began implementing the new (2013)
curriculum at all levels of education throughout Indonesia.
There are four major differences between the 2013 curriculum and the previous
one (2006). First, the 2013 curriculum was fully designed and developed by
the Ministry of Education and Culture. Schools and teachers now only need
to understand the curriculum and follow it. The previous curriculum, on the
contrary, was school-based, which meant that the schools created their own
curricula. The government provided competency standards that every student
had to meet, and schools created their curricula based on those standards,
with government guidance. Second, the 2013 curriculum introduced
four core competencies: spiritual, social, intellectual and psychomotoric
(Minister of Education, 2013a). All learning materials are designed to guide
students to meet the minimum standards of these competencies. Third,
the 2013 curriculum introduced an integrated curriculum approach for
early grade students (Minister of Education, 2013a). This approach means
that the curriculum is not delivered based on subjects, but rather on certain
themes, through which various subjects or disciplines are introduced. For
example, first grade students are introduced to a theme called ‘my family’. By
exploring the theme, students learn language, mathematics, geography and
science. Fourth, the new curriculum has a different assessment system, one
that mandates teachers to assess the four core competences through the
following means: observations, self-evaluation, tests and specific tasks, and
portfolios (Minister of Education, 2013b).
On 5 December 2014, the Minister of Education and Culture decided to
suspend the implementation of the 2013 curriculum, except in 6,221 pilot
schools (Ministry of Education and Culture, 2014a). The main reason given
for the suspension was that the 2013 curriculum was implemented in a rush,
and evaluated before it was implemented across the country (Ministry of
Education and Culture, 2014a). Additionally, teachers were not prepared to