Primary school
I visited an Islamic (private) primary school in Tangerang, and I spent the whole school day in
discussion with teachers, the head teacher, and administrators, examining documentary data, and
in observation of a range of classes. I was also able to conduct a number of short teaching sessions
which, as noted above, were important ways of checking students’ knowledge and understanding
directly.
This primary school has 430 pupils (with 164 in the secondary school on the same site) and has
been in the SBI scheme for two years. The school teaches three subjects in English, namely, Maths,
Science and English, and 9 subjects in Bahasa Indonesian. 70% of pupils go on to an SBI junior
secondary school. The school SBI programme has 9 teachers, all of them Indonesian, 6 of whom are
teachers of Maths and Science. To enter the SBI school programme children have to pass a Bahasa
entrance test to determine their educational level.