Project 5: Policy Analysis Paper
This was a project done in International K-12 Education Policy class taught by Prof. Xiu Cravens. Each student was asked to think about any Contemporary Education Reform Policy in K-12 level that they found interesting to be analyzed from any part of the world. It is expected that this paper can also be addressed to either policy maker in that chosen country, particular community leaders or any related stakeholders from this policy discussed.
Project Overview
This paper was addressed to Policy Maker in the Education Department of Indonesia who had the say in evaluating the implementation of the K-13 and its impact on both international and national assessments.
To whom it may be addressed
In the past 10 years, Indonesia as the 4th most populous country in the world has gone through several national curriculum reformations. This was done as anticipation of bonus of demographics in 2020 in which more than 70% of Indonesia (around 200 million people) will be in working age. K-13 as the recent curriculum implied is expected to prepare the students to be equipped well for this particular context of bonus demographic and globalization era.
Background of Chosen Topic
This paper examines the implementation of the K-13 curriculum through the lens of AQEE from OECD and its impact on international assessments such as PISA or TIMSS.
The Policy Analysis Paper
As a teacher who had 6-year experience in Indonesia, I noticed that the frequent changing of the national curriculum frustrated not only the teachers but also the students. As a result, the students' outcomes were also impacted. This aligned with the results that I found on this paper. The frequent changing of curricula and lack of support in addressing the inequality of education between the eastern and the western part of Indonesia had a significant impact on the declining trends in students' performance in the National Examination in the last 5 years.
This particular topic was chosen to discuss this issue in the hope that this policy brief/paper could contribute some recommendations for the education reform policies in Indonesia especially in regards to the curriculum reformation. With the centralized system of education, it is important for Indonesia to address this issue. With the opportunity to learn about the educational systems around the world through this Global K-12 education class with Professor Cravens, as well as the guidance that I had from her, I had the chance to produce this project through the research that I did for the whole semester in this class about Indonesia.
Learning Agility; How this project was done and improved
My analytical and research skills had primary roles in completing the projects. These two strengths helping me not only in selecting related research findings but also in analyzing the data to inform and make policies recommendations to the government.
Self-awareness; Strengths
The challenges in addressing this topic were something to do with the availability of the data and how to find a way so that this project can be used to inform the government officials in Indonesia. Most of the time of producing this project was used to dive into the data and literature reviews and the government policies related to this issue. With the opportunity in presenting this project at the conference at the University of Indiana Bloomington, the results of this research were then presented to the government officials who happened to attend the conference.
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"The availability of data for evaluation and research has been something that we will work on in order to encourage more research and evaluation needed to inform policy and practices in Indonesia's education"
(National Education Officer and Professor at one of the leading Universities in Indonesia)
Reflective Practice; Challenges and Opportunities
This paper/Policy Recommendation paper gave me the opportunity to not only hone my research skills but also how to communicate the research findings that I had through the report for the stakeholders in this issue. This experience also helped to realize that my research skills in education can be used to work closely with research education centers or government research offices that work closely with policy-making processes in Education.