2. EDUCATION IN INDONESIA
• Education in Indonesia is under the responsibility
of the Ministry of Education and Culture
(Kementerian Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan or
Kemdikbud) and the Ministry of Religious Affairs
(Kementerian Agama or Kemenag).
• Education is defined as a planned effort to
establish a study environment and education
process.
• Schools in Indonesia are run either by the
government (negeri) or private sectors (swasta).
7. Indonesians are required to attend 9
years of school, 6 years in Elementary
School and 3 years in Junior High School.
They must go to school six days a week
from 7:30 to midday. They can choose
between state-run, nonsectarian public
schools supervised by the Department of
National Education (Depdiknas) or private or
semiprivate religious (usually Islamic) schools
supervised and financed by the Department
of Religious Affairs.
8. A central goal of the national education
system is not merely to impart secular
wisdom about the world but also to instruct
children in the principles of participation in
the modern nation-state.
Teachers customarily do not ask
questions of individual pupils,rather a
standard teaching technique is to narrate
a historical event or to describe a
mathematical problem, pausing at key
junctures to allow the pupils to call out
responses that "fill in the blanks".
9. By not identifying individual problems
of pupils and retaining an emotionally
distanced demeanor, teachers are said to
show themselves to be patient, which is
considered admirable behavior
To enter secondary education, pupils
of the sixth grade have to sit for two final
examinations, the school final examination
and the state (national) examination.
10. Grades/years of Sekolah Dasar (SD)
UK, US name Indonesian Age Group
First Grade Kelas Satu 6 - 7 years
Second Grade Kelas Dua 7 - 8 years
Third Grade Kelas Tiga 8 - 9 years
Fourth Grade Kelas Empat 9 - 10 years
Fifth Grade Kelas Lima 10 - 11 years
Sixth Grade Kelas Enam 11 - 12 years
11. Secondary Education
Secondary education, also known as high
school, is the stage of education following
primary (or elementary) education, and is
the last part of formal compulsory education.
Secondary education takes place in
secondary schools. Secondary school starts
from junior high school and continued by
senior high school.
• JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
• SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL
12. ISLAMIC SCHOOL
The secular and nationalist emphasis in public
schools has been resisted by some of the Muslim
majority. A distinct and vocal minority of these
Muslims prefer to place their children in a pesantren
(islamic boarding school), or Islamic school.
The studies are not organized as a progression
of courses leading to graduation. Although the chief
aim of pesantren is to produce good Muslims, they
do not share a single stance toward Islam or a
position on secularism.
13. Some pesantren emphasize the
autonomy of modern students to think
for themselves and to interpret
scripture and modern. Others are more
traditional and stress the importance of
following the wisdom of elders,
including their teachings on science,
religion, and family life.
For those who opt for a pesantren
education, a sixth-grade equivalency
certificate is available after successful
completion of a state test.
14. In order for students to adapt to life in the modern
nation-state, in the 1970s the Muslim-dominated Department
of Religion (now the Department of Religious Affairs)
advocated the spread of a newer variety of Muslim school,
the madrassa.
This kind of school integrates religious subjects from the
pesantren with secular subjects from the Western-style
public-education system.Although in general the public
believes that Islamic schools offer lower-quality education,
among Islamic schools a madrassa is ranked lower than a
pesantren.