BANYUWANGI: From the Jawa Pos, 10 July 2006

Parents Concerned About Their School

How can schools get the full support of parents for implementing school based management (SBM) and PAKEM? Ibu Suhernik, the school principal of SDN 4 Pengajuran, Banyuwangi decided to do this by inviting parents of grade 1 students for the school year 2006-2007 to a meeting on 8 and 9 July to inform them about SBM and PAKEM. Ibu Suhernik was helped by the district facilitators to explain about SBM and PAKEM and was supported with photos of the implementation of SBM and PAKEM in her own and other schools.

After that, the parents were asked to say what they thought about PAKEM and then to observe directly the children working in class and to try becoming students themselves. There was an excellent response from the parents. They were critical, asked a lot of questions and made many suggestions.

One of them criticized the display boards in classrooms as being too high and offered to help the teacher to rearrange the boards to make them more suitable for the children. Another parent suggested making the class more cheerful by developing hanging displays of a children's work to make them more creative and imaginative. One suggested making the displays in the higher classes neater so as not to distract the students.

Now those parents have started to ask the teachers about the PAKEM program. They have also formed parents groups and are prepared to give material and non material support to the school. It is clear that by sharing the vision and mission of the school in a way that supports the implementation of SBM and PAKEM, Ibu Suhernik and the teachers feel they have gained the full support of the parents.

PURBALINGGA: Competing to Attend MBE School

Pride, happiness, and sadness at the same time. Those were the feelings of Bpk Fachmidi Humam the school principal of SDN 1 Wirasana Purbalingga, after it had become an MBE school and many students tried to enroll in the school even before the start of the enrollment period. By 1 July 75 students had tried to enrol even though the official enrollment of students only started on the 3 June 2006.

Those trying to enroll their children didn't only come from the village, many came from outside the sub-district. The result of MBE participation has been a rapid improvement in student achievement, school management and the physical condition of the school, as well as the very active role of the community in supporting the school, since it had joined the MBE program.

The feelings of pride and happiness felt by Bpk Fachmidi Humam were because the school he leads enjoys a high level of confidence from the community; the sadness he felt was that, because of capacity constraints, the school was only capable of taking 35 new students.

Bpk Fachmidi Humam discussed the matter with the school committee to find a solution to the problem. After discussions between the staff of the school led by Bpk Fachmidi Humam and the school committee headed by Bpk Pandi, S Sos, the solution was to increase the number of grade 1 classes to two to accommodate the large number of students enrolling for the school year 2006-2007.

The funds to build a new classroom came from the school committee. The parents group from grade 4, where 100% of the students had passed the grade in 2006 helped by donating and laying tiles in two classrooms. This new building was formerly handed over on 01 July 2006 in a ceremony attended by Bpk Masjudi (Central Java MBE Coordinator) and Bpk Umar Samadhy (MBE consultant).