Teachers' attitudes to signing for children with severe learning disabilities in Indonesia

The Indonesian education system is striving for an inclusive approach and techniques are needed which can support children with severe learning disabilities and their peers in this context. Manually signed language has proved useful both in supporting the development and empowerment of children with severe learning disabilities and supporting inclusive educational practices. The development of an Indonesian signed language approach for this purpose is therefore argued to be an appropriate goal. There is evidence that the use of signed language within classrooms is significantly influenced by teacher attitudes and beliefs. This paper examines the attitudes towards such an approach based on semi-structured interviews with 20 teachers in 7 schools in East Java and questionnaire responses from 69 teachers and educational professionals more widely located across Indonesia. The results suggest that teachers hold broadly positive attitudes to the possibility of signing. There is a complex relationship between social stigmatisation, the nature of signing and a possible classroom pedagogy. These issues need to be considered if the development of an Indonesian signed language approach for inclusive classrooms is to proceed successfully.     

Television performance in Indonesia: steering between civil society,state and market

This article looks at the television landscape in Indonesia that has undergone a major transformation in recent decades. As one of the ‘Asian Tigers,’ Indonesia introduced commercial television in two waves between 1989 and 2002 as a complement to the traditional state broadcaster, TVRI. During the Reformasi movement, commercial TV stations contributed to the emerging civil society in the period 1998–2000 by supporting the movement for democratic reform that led to the resignation of President Suharto. An assessment of the current Indonesian television scene shows that most commercial TV stations, after a short coalition with civil society, went ‘back to business’ again in the context of a relatively young but highly competitive Indonesian market.     

Indonesia Electronic Library Design Plan for Supporting a Distance Learning Environment

Abstract

Indonesia is answering the need for a more skilled work force by using distance education and technology to reach more students. This paper describes the development of an electronic library to support these students by member libraries of the Indonesia Distance Learning Network.     

CULTURE CLASH

International media training has become popular in post-New Order Indonesia. Educational organizations have focused on training radio journalists, reflecting the accessibility of radio stations across the nation. This study investigated the training effectiveness and consequent adoption of Western journalism practices in the context of Indonesian radio journalism. Five focus groups were conducted in five Indonesian cities with distinctive media markets, populations, and city sizes. Findings illustrate that the adoption and dissemination of training materials were made more difficult by the widely differing values and backgrounds of journalists as well as a lack of funding from radio stations.     

Pre-service education for primary school English teachers in Indonesia: policy implications

Although English is only an extra-curricular subject at primary level in Indonesia, expectations over the improved quality of the teachers are exceptionally high . This is the case in the past few years in which the low proficiency of primary English teachers and their lack of teaching competencies have repeatedly been pointed out as major constraints. Unfortunately, it remains unclear whether this problem is attributed to the delivery of pre-service education in preparing primary school English teachers. This paper gathered data from teachers, language teacher educators, primary school principals, members of educational boards, and educational consultants. The data were analysed using Grounded Theory in order to examine the adequacy of pre-service education in Indonesia to prepare primary school English teachers as well as factors that contribute to its efficacy or lack thereof. The findings of the study demonstrate the need for specific preparation for primary school English teachers as well as further training for teacher educators. This present study is highly relevant to Indonesia and other Asian countries where teacher efficacy is a major concern.     

Do primary students understand how pregnancy can occur? A comparison of students in Jakarta,West Java,West Nusa Tenggara and South Sulawesi,Indonesia

In Indonesian primary schools, sex education is implicitly integrated into various related subjects, such as science, biology, social studies and religion. The technical facts of ovulation and sperm are mentioned in biology, although little or no connection is made between this process and sexual intercourse. By the end of primary school, therefore, children are likely to have a poor understanding of how pregnancy can occur. Given that young girls at this age have already experienced or will soon experience menarche, and given the increasing trend towards delaying the age at marriage in Indonesian society, this lack of knowledge places young people at risk of various negative consequences, including unwanted pregnancy. In this paper, we investigate the level of understanding regarding human reproduction amongst 1762 students attending the last year of primary school, distributed across 32 different schools in Indonesia. Despite the fact that all schools follow a national curriculum, our results reveal widespread variability in the students' comprehension of how pregnancy can occur. In particular, students attending Islamic religious schools and those in less developed provinces of Indonesia appear to have a much poorer understanding of the link between sexual intercourse and conception.     

印度尼西亚华语区域词语初探

本文以印尼代表性华文报纸、杂志、著作及华人口头语言为据,参照有关著作,整理、举述了351例印尼华语区域词语,择要对这些词语的意义、用法作了解释、举例;同时举述了一些普通话词语在印尼华语区使用时的不同用法。在此基础上,文章概括了印尼华语区域词语的几个特点:(1)多使用文言词语,表现出典雅性和滞后性;(2)选用闽、粤等方言词;(3)采用与普通话不同的造词策略:或选用与普通话不同的近义语素;或采用与普通话不同的词序;或对已有词语做了与普通话不同的缩略或扩充;或采用了特殊的音译。     

Child sexual abuse in Indonesia: A systematic review of literature,law and policy

BackgroundLike many middle-income countries, knowledge about child sexual abuse (CSA) is limited in Indonesia. The national government has stated a commitment to protect children from the worst forms of abuse, yet the sensitivity of CSA along with the complexity of culture and law, present substantial challenges.ObjectiveThis article reviews current knowledge about CSA in Indonesia, in the context of existing laws and policies that influence CSA prevention and intervention.MethodA systematic review of this research was conducted in the following manner: a review of scholarly literature and grey literature in English (19 papers) and in Bahasa Indonesian (11 papers), and a review of CSA-related Indonesian laws (4 documents) and policies (5 documents).ResultsThis review finds that knowledge about CSA in Indonesia is still limited. The taboos on discussing sexual matters were identified as factors that impede reporting of CSA. Poverty also leads to increasing children’s risk of sexual abuse. There was less attention to CSA occurring within family contexts and focus was more upon its occurrence outside of the family. The study identified that contradictory definitions of children within the law add to children’s vulnerability to CSA; this is especially the case for girls. Current child protection strategies in prevention and intervention lack specific focus on CSA.ConclusionFurther research is needed to enable the development of evidence-based approaches to better harmonize the development of law and policy with contemporary knowledge about CSA.     

1956-1958年印度尼西亚外岛叛乱与美国的隐蔽行动

在1956—1958年印度尼西亚外岛叛乱中,美国中央情报局为叛军秘密提供各种军事援助,为此相继实施了“黑客行动”、“汉斯行动”和“苹果一号”等军事援助计划。由于外岛叛军力量分散,指挥不力,叛乱很快被印度尼西亚政府军镇压,这也宣告了中央情报局隐蔽活动的失败。印尼外岛叛乱中美国隐蔽行动的失败暴露了美国政府对印尼政策的问题,也促使美国调整了对印尼的政策,把关注重点从外岛转回内岛。     

印尼矿业投资的政策与法律风险分析

随着“一带一路”倡议的提出,中国企业对“一带一路”沿线国家的投资越来越多。印尼作为东南亚国家联盟中GDP总量和人口总量最大的国家,自然成为了中国企业重要的对外投资东道国之一。矿产资源是印尼主要的收入来源,也是中国企业在印尼投资的主要项目,但是印尼在矿业、投资及劳工等政策与法律规定与中国存在很大不同,中国矿业企业应当注意规避在印尼矿业投资领域存在的投资、劳工等方面的法律与政策的风险。