About the school

Sukma Bangsa Pidie is a boarding school founded by Sukma Bangsa Foundation that was set up to help the victims of the 2004 tsunami. As it is a boarding school, it is of course very different from the public schools. That is why I don't know whether some things that I have learned about the system are common in the Indonesian education in general, or does it concern only this school.

The structure of the Indonesian education system is similar to the Finnish system. You will go to elementary school for six years, then three years in junior high shool and after that three years in senior high school. It is exactly the same in Finland. All the kids have to go to school, at least until finishing junior high.

Unfortunately I could not see any normal daily lessons because of the timing of my volunteering. When I arrived, the students were in the middle of their examination week, during which they had two exams per day. I would have been very interested in following the ordinary school days and lessons, but no luck this time.

Intrestingly, the school semester didn't end when the exams were over. After the examination week the next week was full of so called class meetings, meaning that some senior high shool students organized different kinds of competitions to all the classes. Some of the competitions were like quizzes, starting by all of the students from one class sitting on the lobby floor with a pencil snd paper. One senior high student was asking questions in the front, and the students answered and lifted their answer paper in the air. The teachers were walking  between the students controlling the event and checking if the students answered correct or wrong. With wrong answer you loose the game and a teacher would tell you to go and join other students following the competition. The competition ended when all but one had joined the audience, so they knew their winner. There was also class meetings in sports, like in volley ball and futsal. In sport class meetings it was classes competing against each other.

After one week of class meetings, it was time for Ramadan to begin. I understood that during Ramadan most schools don't have lessons nor other activities. Sukma Bangsa Pidie school was is special because they had activities 1,5 weeks into Ramadan time. All the activities were of course about religion. The classes gathered together somewhere in the school area, sitting in a circle with their "parent teacher" (I guess). They studied different things about the religion, sometimes about some religious rules, habits, expected behaviour etc., sometimes they tried to memorize parts of the holy Koran. And of course, they had competitions also, named "Ranking number 1". It seemed to me similar to class meetings, but of course the questions were about religion. And they had competitions in teams also, every class was represented by two teams of three members. The classes are named after some famous religious persons by the way (Ibnu Khaldun for example). I asked why they didn't mix girls and boys because it wasn't the first time I noticed that. However, I was told that actually normally they do mix boys and girls. That made my Finnish equality-emphasized teacher soul breathe better again ;)

Another interesting thing I could take part in was the teacher auditions fpr the upcoming semester. The school needs more teachers because there will be more students next semester and also some teachers will be resigning. So they had many teacher candidates, who actually came to the school to teach one lesson while at least one teacher from the school was following. Plus me. I hope I didn't make the poor candidates feel more under pressure... In Finland we do not have auditions for teachers. We announce a job, teachers send applications, we pick up the best applicants and interview them, and the last step is to make the choice. I think there are laws concerning the procedure, so that you cannot just pick your favourite or a friend if there is someone who has clearly better qualifications for the job.

Anyway, these teacher auditions were a new thing for me. I ended up following two auditions. And well, am I terrible if I say the first one was horrible and the second one was just so-so? Even if I obviously don't understand too much about the teaching because of language barrier, I do see how the teacher is with students, what kind of methods the teacher is using and if the teacher is excited aboutthe subject. In the auditions, the candidates can choose themselves what they will teach. In the first audition I was following there was a teacher who had chosen to teach senior high students about democracy. The teacher was expressionless and made the students prepare questions about democracy in two groups, and later the groups would ask the questions from one another. That was so boring, neither did the students enjoy it or the teacher following. Poor candidate. The next candidate was a candidate for Indonesian language teacher teaching to 4th and 5th grade students about stories and the terminology concerning stories, like main characters, plots etc. She was way better than the democracy teacher, but also quite expressionless. The teaching part was better though, she introduced herself and taught with a little bit more enthusiasm (still not too much). But she flopped when she started to tell a story. She went  expressionless and it felt like she was a TV news reporter and not reading a story about dragons and princesses to 10-11 years old kids.

I guess in Finland we have pretty high standard for teachers. Even if everybody represents of course their own personality and teaching style, I think the Finnish teacher education guarantees that there is at last some standard level. All teachers have studied in university for five years and every teacher has their Master's degree. Also getting in to the teacher studies is difficult, you have to pass entrance and qualification exams and interviews. For example, the year when I applied to teacher studies, their was about 2700 applicants and 86 was chosen (just a bit over 3%). So it is not too easy to get in to the university (in almost any program), but once you get in, the education is free. That is the good thing in the Finnish system: you don't have to have money to study in university. Also, Finland is pretty much a corruption free country, so you can't buy yourself in.

I heard that average teacher salary in Indonesia is about 300 dollars. There is a huge difference compared to teacher salaries in Finland, but of course life expenses are also very different. Salaries are always reflecting the circumstances, the cost of living in the country. For comparison, I would guess the average salary of a teacher in Finland is around 2300€. (In dollars?) And teachers do not have a good salary in Finland. You don't go for teacher carrier for the money, you do it because it's your calling. Many other professions are better paid.