Implementing the School Mapping

Education Database in Probolinggo
At the start of November 2003 the district of Probolinggo started to collect data on education which will be stored in its own database. On 30 October 2003 the local government of Probolinggo explained the uses of this database with the staff of Dinas Pendidikan (Education Office). The discussions took place in the offices of the Head of Social and Cultural Affairs Section of Bappeda (the regional development agency) and was chaired by the head of the section herself. The meeting was attended by the Deputy Head of district Dinas Pendidikan and the Dinas branch heads of the MBE sub-district. Education data from the MBE target sub-districts, Kraksaan, Dringu and Krucil together with two further sub-districts, Tongas and Lumbang will be entered into the database. The first three sub-districts were chosen by agreement between the district government and RTI, while the other two districts were included at the request of local government.

In Pati 54 Primary Schools Already Merged! The Head of Dinas Pendidikan of Pati District, Drs. Supriyadi very much supports the implementation of school mapping as the first step of obtaining information for taking decisions in education management, including implementing district policy on school mergers. Bpk. Supriyadi informs us further that based on previous school mapping the district of Pati already carried out 42 primary school mergers in 2001 out of a total of 44 planned mergers, and in 2002 twelve out of a total of 14 planned mergers were implemented. Because of this he considers that the school mapping being done under the MBE program is a strategic measure in the implementation of the management of basic education.

School Mapping in Pacitan District

A preparation meeting led by Bpk. Sukatno, the coordinator of the District Mapping Team designed data forms to be used at school level and at the same time did a simulated filling in of the forms. In addition, the meeting also discussed and agreed methods of obtaining data which would minimise manipulation. The method agreed included gathering all the school principals together to explain the school mapping and give out the forms, doing cross checks and monitoring, data collection, examining the data on a sample basis, presenting the data and making a preliminary analysis before the analysis together with the MBE consultants.

A technical meeting to explain the filling in of the forms was held separately in each of the two sub-districts in the hope that each Dinas branch would be able to guide the discussions intensively and effectively. The meetings took place on 7 November (Tulakan sub-district) and 9 November (Pacitan sub-district). The background and objectives of the school mapping were explained during the meetings, as well as giving technical guidance on the filling in of the forms, based on the simulation by the mapping team. The occasion was also used to explain the whole MBE program, because a number of the participants did not yet know about it. The principals did not generally experience any problems in filling in the data, as it was not entirely new to them.

The 15 person mapping team visited schools to check that the forms were filled in correctly, were valid and that the data was genuine. The team divided itself into small groups and each of these visited a different group of schools. The consultants from the centre also made visits to a number of schools in the two sub-districts in order to monitor the data collection. As originally agreed, the data collection lasted six days, By the 14 November all the data had been collected for the 84 schools in Tulakan sub-district and 41 schools in Pacitan sub-district.

School Mapping Analysis Workshop

The school mapping workshop took place from 6 – 9 January at the Hotel Santika in Surbaya. The participants included the 15 person mapping team from each MBE district. There were also three further participants from each district from an NGO, the Education Council (Dewan Pendidikan) and District Parliament (DPRD), as well as Dinas Pendidikan provincial representatives – so that all became acquainted with the school mapping. The objectives of the workshop included analysing all the information on basic education which had been collected, analysing needs, drawing up plans and making recommendations for follow-up.

Based on the analysis, the participants drew up plans to make better use of facilities by merging schools, forming multi-grade schools and changing the use of redundant buildings; to plan for Junior Secondary school (SLTP and MTs) building needs; to analyse teacher needs which led to considerations of how teachers should be deployed efficiently, the redeployment of teachers, placing of new contract teachers and the certification of Madrasah Tsanawiyah teachers; the analysis of condition of school facilities to support the maintenance of schools; and an analysis of school finances. During the analysis many issues arose such as: