JAKARTA - The government must ensure that the evaluation of textbooks from elementary school to high school is not caught up in a massive book replacement project.
Previously, in a limited meeting at the Merdeka Palace some time ago, President Prabowo Subianto ordered the Minister of Basic and Secondary Education (Mendikdasmen) Abdul Mu'ti to immediately form a team to study and re-evaluate the textbooks currently used in schools.
The Minister of State Secretary (Mensesneg) Prasetyo Hadi said that evaluation was needed so that textbooks could be adjusted to the development of time and technology.
"We don't want to lose to textbooks from outside," said Prasetyo at a press conference with Minister of Education and Culture Abdul Mu'ti after the meeting.
The directive was then followed up with a review of textbooks from elementary school, junior high school to high school. Prabowo asked the government to compare Indonesian textbooks with those from a number of neighboring countries.
Responding to the discourse, the National Coordinator of the Indonesian Education Monitoring Network (JPPI) Ubaid Matraji reminded that the plan to improve and re-establish textbooks from elementary school to high school should not be trapped again as a massive book replacement project.
JPPI emphasized that the improvement of textbooks must be placed as part of a comprehensive learning reform, not as a stand-alone program.
"If every five years we change books, but the children's reading, counting, and reasoning skills remain low, it means that the problem is not just the books, but the education system. Don't let Indonesian education be rich in projects, but poor in achievements," Ubaid said in a statement received by VOI.
Not a Solution to the Education ProblemIndonesian education continues to be overshadowed by problems, which have long been unresolved. Starting from the low quality of learning, to the lack of government attention to educators.
Ubaid Matraji said Indonesia was often trapped in the tradition of "changing ministers, changing curricula" or "changing presidents, changing books". In fact, based on experience, the quality of education still faces the same problems even though various new books are printed with large budgets.
The main problem of Indonesian education today, said Ubaid, is not a lack of new books, but rather the low quality of education.
"Don't let us just busy changing books, but fail to improve education," he said.
Ubaid did not deny the need to evaluate textbooks. The evaluation is important to ensure that the content of the book is in line with the development of science, is easy for children to understand, trains critical thinking skills, is relevant to the lives of learners, is inclusive, and does not contain material errors or biases.
Even so, the government must not build the perception that low quality of education can be solved only by changing textbooks.
"New books do not automatically make education quality. Books are just one of the learning instruments. If the welfare and quality of teachers, reading culture, literacy and numeracy skills, facility inequality, and the learning process in the classroom are not improved, replacing books will only replace objects, not change the quality of education," said Ubaid.
Potential WasteHe also reminded of the risk of wasting the budget if the evaluation of the book is directly translated into the reprinting of millions of copies of the book throughout Indonesia.
"Don't then replace all the books just because the government changes. That has the potential to be a waste of budget, even it can shift the education agenda into just a procurement project," he said.
The education policy is supposed to require continuity across governments. So, even though the president and ministers change, the education system should not always start from scratch.
"Educational legacy should be measured by whether children are increasingly able to read, count, reason, think critically, and get quality education," Ubaid explained.
Furthermore, the process of preparing and determining textbooks is expected to be far from political interests and business interests in procurement.
The preparation of books should be based on the needs of learners and scientific evidence, not based on the tastes of officials or the desire of each regime to have its own version of textbooks.
For this reason, the process must involve teachers, academics, subject matter experts, pedagogy experts, child development experts, inclusive and disabled education groups, civil society, and be carried out through trials to teachers and students from various regional conditions.
Books must also be tested not only in terms of their suitability with the curriculum, but also in terms of their ability to help children understand lessons, build curiosity, and improve literacy, numeracy, and reasoning skills.
"Don't let the excuse of improving the quality of books become an entry point for the textbook business project. The government must be transparent about what books will be replaced, how much the budget is, who will compile it, who will assess it, who will print it, and how the procurement process will be," said Ubaid.
The English, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and French versions are automatically generated by the AI. So there may still be inaccuracies in translating, please always see Indonesian as our main language. (system supported by DigitalSiber.id)
