MADIUN: MI Islamiyah 03

Improved Performance in the MBE Program

The three components of the MBE program include school based management (SBM), PAKEM and community participation but many people are still quite unsure about them - even more so when they are linked to national assessment.

Many people question whether PAKEM is able to raise student achievement. As a result many teachers prefer to drill their students. At Madrasah Ibtidayah (MI) Islamiyah 3, Madiun these fears were not realized.

MI Islamiyah 3 has shown consistently that implementing the three components of the MBE program does indeed increase quality and has enabled the school to compete to become one of the primary schools in the forefront of academic and non academic achievement.

We have used several strategies:

1. In school based management MI Islamiyah 3 has developed the curriculum as follows:

• We have included Koran reading for the young students in the curriculum. Using this strategy almost 100% of grade 3 students are able to recite the Koran.

• We have included computer Islamic studies and English in the local curriculum content starting from grade 1.

2. As far as PAKEM is concerned; besides using PAKEM for each subject, we are including field visits once or twice a month in the program of study. To achieve this we are working with other agencies. For example, when the children were learning about communicating by letter, we took them to the post office. The children received a detailed explanation from the post office officials.

3. In the area of community participation, the school has been able to improve its infrastructure over the past year. This has included opening a language laboratory, science laboratory, making a science garden and, not least, over half the classes have been provided with electronic media, including TVs and computers.

With this level of creativity MI Islamiyah 3 has succeeded in establishing a good academic and non academic performance in the year 2005/2006.

By Bambang Wiyono, Principal at MI Islamiyah 03, Madiun

MALANG: MTs Turen Enjoying PAKEM

When they are learning using PAKEM the children have a new experience. They no longer sit passively listening for the whole lesson. At MTs Turen the lessons are more interesting and the students are more active developing their own knowledge and understanding creatively and independently.

Learning activities are designed by the teacher so that the students are 'working', doing observation, experiments or discussing in order to understand the facts or concepts, and to solve problems. Using the school environment as a learning resource is one activity which the students enjoy and encourages them to be active.

Since the introduction of PAKEM the students speak more confidently and are willing to express their opinions in front of each other during the lesson. The class is more orderly, be-cause the children are absorbed in their work. Rarely do students disturb the others or fail to pay attention to the lessons.

Challenging and Innovative

Teachers have thought of lots of creative ideas to develop their students' abilities. Ibu Sri Winarsih, an early grades teacher from SD Wonokerso 3, found it difficult at first to develop thematic lessons using PAKEM approaches, because there were too many students (51) in her class.
After she had taken part in the facilitator training she had benefited from the experience and learnt lots of in-novations and tricks, which helped her to organize a large class. And the result is... FANTASTIC!!!