BLITAR: West Kalimantan Makes a Study Visit to Blitar

On 21 March 2006 Blitar received 110 visitors from West Kalimantan representing nine districts. The party was divided into two groups. The first went to SD Tangkil 1 and the second to SD Babadan 1.

After the school visits the activities continued with a dialog in the meeting hall at SD Babadan, which was attended by the Head of the Education and Culture Office from Blitar District, Drs. H. Bambang Suntoro, M.Si.

The MBE coordinator for the East Java province, Bpk Asari, was also present. In the dialog the visitors asked a lot of questions about the developments in the schools and especially about SBM, community participation and PAKEM. The guests were impressed, satisfied and even asked how they could become part of the MBE program.

MTsN Jabung Blitar Holds an Education Seminar

Madrasah as Islamic education institutions are viewed by part of society as a second class alternative to conventional schools. Madrasahs are seen as institutions which focus on religion at the expense of general subjects.

On the other hand, a generation which has knowledge and technology that is not supported by religion and a strong sense of morality, will not be able to create a nation of good quality.

Science and technology must go side by side with religion and be developed together. Based on this view MTsN Jabung arranged an education seminar with the theme 'Building a Quality Madrasah'.

The education seminar was attended by 198 participants consisting of school principals and teachers from madrasahs, representatives of the Ministry of Religious Affairs, school committee members, parents groups and the teachers and other staff of MTsN Jabung. The seminar took place on 21 March 2006.

Bpk Asari and Moh. Najid from the MBE program as well as Drs. H. Isbah Salimi, the head of teachers union (PGRI) for Blitar acted as resource persons. According to the reflections of the participants, they would very much like to have a follow up activities in the form of a workshop or training. This activity shows that the madrasahs in Blitar want to get ahead.

NGANJUK: PAKEM Training Implemented Using PAKEM Below: A student from SMP 4 Prambon, which was the venue for the PAKEM training, is looking at the results of the participants' discussions and the students work done during the teaching practices and displayed as material for discussion among the participants

PATI: Dissemination Strategy

From 9-11 March 2006 the Education Office of Pati district in cooperation with the MBE program held training for second level facilitators, which was opened by the Bupati, Bpk Tasiman, accompanied by the Head of the Education Office for Pati, Bpk Sutarmoko. (In the picture Bpk Tasiman and Bpk Sutarmoko are looking at displays of children's work after opening the training).

It was stressed that the role of the facili-tator is vital in disseminating ideas through school clusters to both primary and junior secondary schools so that they start to teach using PAKEM approaches, in line with the policy of the education office.

Integrated Activities During Inter-Class Competition

An activity which takes place in each year at SMP Gembong, which is the school of the Bahasa Indonesia facilitator, Ibu Sri Suryanti, (photo on the right) is a class meeting. This year she gave tasks to the group's of class 8A children which covered seven basic competencies which the children are learning. These included writing a proposal for their activities, making a notice (giving information), writing an official letter, writing directions, making a poster, making a news report and writing poetry.

The technique for completing the tasks was as follows: the class 8B students were divided into seven groups (six students per group), each group worked on a different basic competency. When they were finished, they discussed the results and finished off with a display of the students work and a dis-cussion about the whole activity.