Exploring Informatics Books for Junior High School in Indonesia
The News
In 2021, which means the last year before this article was jotted down, Joko Widodo, as President of the Indonesian Republic, gave a speech in front of participants of the Short Education Program (Program Pendidikan Singkat/PPSA) XXIII at the National Palace. He emphasized that “Learning programming languages (coding) is more important than English.”
Implementation
This speech was heard by the Minister of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology — Nadiem Makarim — as instruction that must be implemented. Thus, in the Merdeka Curriculum, he adds a new subject called “Informatika” (Informatics). The book itself was created by the Ministry Team and is used all over the schools that implement this curriculum.
Opinion
I really agree with the idea presented by Mr. President. It spurs enthusiasm to continue to welcome the industrial revolution 4.0. It needs digital skills, which is something that must be instilled from an early age. In this case, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology through the Merdeka Curriculum program adds an additional subject called Informatics. Launched in 2021, this curriculum was meant to be adopted first by selected schools called “Sekolah Penggerak”. Then, this curriculum began to be implemented in several schools with a wider reach this year.
I also only found out about this curriculum from mass media coverage since April, which is only a few months away from implementation (students usually start school in July). I can assume that the implementation of this curriculum is far from socializing as is usually done by the government when it comes to implementing a new curriculum. I still remember when the transition from the 2006 curriculum (KTSP) to the 2013 curriculum (K-13) also experienced rejection from both teachers and students, which takes time to be adopted.
Merdeka Curriculum Textbook can be accessed on the ministry’s website portal. I looked through the books one by one, starting from grade 1 (primary school). Finally, I found that Informatics books were available from grade 7 (junior high school). This means that this book should contain basic things that grade 7 students can learn and understand.
Before I could download it, I was stunned by the reviews, which shared the same opinion. The material in the book is too much to learn. Of course, this statement comes from the teacher’s perspective. To prove it, I downloaded it. On the Table of Contents page, I already felt that this book would make a student’s book full of it. To make matters worse, the students who will be studying are beginners who have never studied similar things before.
Chapters 1 and 2 are still about theory. Entering Chapter 3, the material has been mixed with practices ranging from creating files, folders, searching for information in search engines, creating emails, until making simple presentations, which I bet will be worth the time to learn. Chapter 4 discusses computer systems, which I think are quite complicated because there are things related to converting binary numbers to decimal numbers that I learned in my second semester of college.
Chapter 5 covers Computer Networks and the Internet. The material that I criticize here is encryption. This is an in-depth subject because it involves computer security. I studied it in the 4th semester of college.
In Chapter 6, students will learn about data analysis using the Excel application. The book explains many Excel formulas along with the examples, with a total of 55 pages. Some of the formulas might not be really used.
Chapter 7 discusses Algorithms and Programming, introducing the “Scratch” platform as a programming simulation. Chapter 8 discusses the Social Impact of Informatics in theory. Chapter 9 contains Interdisciplinary Informatics Practice which practices an electronic system using a Makey Makey electronic circuit board, which has also been complained on the website regarding the costs that schools/teachers/students may incur to be able to demonstrate what the book practices.
Summary
The policy to add Informatics as a new subject in Junior High School is already pretty nice, but still lacks proper “Quality Control” for the material that is being delivered in the books itself. This may place a strain not only on the students but also on the teacher, who must keep up with the pace of learning. To moderate the “abundance” of material in the Informatics books for Grade 7 Junior High School, the material can be divided and rationalized to be studied during the 3 years of Junior High School. Maybe the Minister of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology wants to strive for the high standard itself so there are more students literate in digital skills (he may try to add some material from his Gojek Engineer — Indonesia’s first startup valued over US$10 billion — in which he was the CEO until getting mandate to lead the Minister of Education and Culture — before the ministry itself being mixed with Research and Technology one) .
Intermezzo
Things that could be a questionable yet unexplained is the sentence in page X, which is “Not too fast to be digitized. The important is to think” (Indonesian: “Tidak terlalu cepat berteknologi. Yang penting berpikir.”). Maybe the author just want to say we won’t be very digitized in near future, but the important thing is to anticipate what comes next.
Books Link
References
