SuaraJakarta.co, JAKARTA – Globalization is coming. One of the effects of globalization is the invasion of technology in every country in the world. One of them is Indonesia; the globalization brings Indonesia to use technology in every aspect (Politics, Economics, Infrastructure, etc.). At this time, we will bring up the issue of education in our paper. Nowadays, the Government of Indonesia is talking about a new curriculum named Kurikulum 2013 (2013 Curriculum). In this curriculum, Junior High School students will not have any IT classes but all of the remaining classes will be technology integrated teaching. In the Indonesian context, we are not ready yet to implement this method. There are some causes that make the 2013 curriculum unable to be implemented yet. There are the competencies of Indonesian teachers, the appropriateness of using technology in teaching some subjects, and the lack of infrastructure to support this teaching method.
Kompas.com (April 9th, 2013) entitled “Apapun Kurikulumnya, yang Penting Gurunya” mentions that there is a lack of innovative Indonesian teachers and that they only follow the curriculum and, they are frightened if they have done something that’s not according to the curriculum. Until now, there is no training for teachers to prepare for this curriculum (Kompas, April 10th 2013). In our Junior High School, some teachers still cannot fully use technology for example they still do not know how to make (power point) presentations. They do not even know about what are the IT products that can be implemented in their teaching and learning situation such as video, music/songs, etc. Most of the teachers only use Microsoft Office in their teaching and learning (Sumintono B., et al., 2012).
Before teachers implement technology in every lesson, they have to know what their students’ needs are. Their students will get the contents of the lesson if the teacher uses appropriate technology and also authentic material which engages the students’ understanding. Besides that, there are some lessons for which it is better not to use technology to engage their learning. For example: Arabic, Physic, Practical Biology, and others lessons that need more practice. In other words, on those lessons we have to focus on how the teachers make their students achieve the goals by using the appropriate method.
The other crucial thing that we have to pay attention to is facilities of schools in Indonesia. As we know to implement the Kurikulum 2013, the government will need a lot of funding to carry out this curriculum, moreover for the IT facilities as edukasi.kompas.com (March 28th 2013) states: the total of curriculum fund is Rp. 2,4 trillion. Knowing that Indonesia is an amend country that need much funding to develop itself we have to consider that the funds will be more efficient (repetition of the useful, use) if we can use it wisely for developing the school. For example, in Papua and some remote areas, they really need to build and develop their schools. As For engaging IT facilities, we can do it after we offer the basic facilities like rooms, books, etc. There are still many aspects that should get more attention which can affect the learning/ teaching process in the classroom.
Teachers’, students’ needs. and infrastructure. Those are things that must be considered by the government to implement this curriculum. However, those are not ready yet. Even though, the curriculum has been set. Funding is another thing that must be considered. This is a concern for the infrastructure. Technology cannot be learnt easily. It must have some steps and practice to master the technology. We think that if the government wants to delay the implementation and focus for the preparation, it will be much better. Thus, this is for the future of Indonesia.