What should educational reform in Indonesia look like? - Learning from the PISA science scores of East-Asian countries and Singapore

1. Assessment of Science Content in Indonesia

As described in the introduction, scientific literacy in Indonesia, especially for 15-years-old-students is unsatisfactory. Scientific literacy is used in PISA and characterized as consisting of four related aspects: context, knowledge, competencies, and attitudes (OECD, 2013). In terms of context, the students must be able to recognize life situations involving science and technology. Regarding knowledge and the position of the Indonesian when it comes to understanding and application, the students still have less knowledge of the natural world and knowledge about science itself. Turning to competencies, Indonesian students lack the ability to identify scientific issues, explain phenomena scientifically, and use scientific evidence. Finally, the students do not perform well in supporting scientific inquiry, motivation, and acting responsibly towards natural resources and environments as part of the attitudes dimension. The above description is illustrated below in Table 3.

Table 3. The description of student’s competencies vis-à-vis the science content of PISA

Description of weaknesses

Less understanding of science and technology in relation to global issues (science contexts)

Indonesian students show less understanding of knowledge of the natural world and technological artifacts (content knowledge), knowledge of how such ideas are produced (procedural knowledge) and an understanding of the underlying rationale for these procedures and the justification for their use (epistemic knowledge), (science knowledge)

Indonesian student less in explaining phenomena scientifically, evaluate and design scientific inquiry, and interpret data and evidence scientifically (science competencies)

The less portion of attitudes towards science (ATS) in curriculum, such as awareness of environmental issues (science attitudes)

The results of the national science examination are illustrated in Figure 3. As seen in the figure, many schools still have an average science score below 7 even though the average score is about 7.5. In addition, based on the author’s experiences as a science educator in Indonesia, the empirical data from the national exam for the last 5 years showed that although the average scores of science is high, but the results of the mapping over indicators, including reasoning and thinking skills are still low. This is due to the lack of competent teachers who can develop an assessment based on higher order thinking (C4 to C6 in cognitive level). The teachers are only competent up to the C3 level. Consequently, the thinking skills of students remain at a low level.

Figure 3. Distribution of average science scores of Indonesia’s junior secondary schools in the 2010 national examination (Suharti, 2013)

2. Lessons Learned from Several Countries

Based on the education systems, assessment and reforms in various countries, the following suggestion online how Indonesia can improve the level of science content learning:

Government policy: policy should borrow from the best examples of the above countries; and balance between decentralization and centralization. In line Brown & Beswick (2014), educators should rethink the curriculum change resulting for government policy, the influence of public and media scrutiny, and the results of standardized tests such as TIMSS, PISA, PIRLS, and other research findings,
More research should be done and teacher development should be emphasized.

Specifically, in regard to science education and assessment of science:

Empower science curriculum by adopting science curricula from other the countries,
Qualify pedagogy (teaching-learning) by encouraging active learning, and the spiral teaching method, e.g.: analogies, illustrations, examples from everyday life in explaining abstract concepts,
Implement assessment innovation by integrating assessment with teaching and learning,
Introduce the types of PISA assessment in the science learning and assessment process,
Provide multi resources in science learning process and promote global scientific literacy through reading and writing,
Synergize teaching, learning and thinking by addressing HOTs, critical thinking, creative thinking, self-control, responsibility, independence, creativity, self-directed learning, and problem-solving in science classes and enhance students’ role in the process of learning,
Conduct mind-training through practical teaching, e.g: conceptual understanding, identify misconceptions, problem-solving and inquiry learning consisting of five domains: knowledge, understanding, and application; thinking habit; skills and processes; social skills; ethics and scientific attitudes,
Build a foundation with the aspects of the nature of science (NOS),
Address the needs of a global knowledge-based economy: social capital, development, and infusing technology in science learning. STEM education is one solution for overcoming lack of knowledge (Suprapto, 2016).