No International Standard for Public Schools

Public Schools in Indonesia are built, maintained and funded by the government under coordination of the Ministry of Education.

In order to upgrade the quality of those schools, the Ministry of Education has allowed few of those schools to adopt international standard of education. Such schools are named Laboratory Schools.

Later on, some other public schools also adopted the international standard.

On 8 January 2013, the Chief of the Constitutional Court Mahfud MD announced the legal basis for such kind of schools i.e. Article 50  (3) of the National Education Law No. 20/2003.
Mahfud MD was quoted by JNN as saying that the purpose is connection with national character building i.e the use of the word "international" will erode the nation's culture and language. Besides, the existence of such schools will cause discrimination between such schools and ordinary public schools.
However, Mahfud acknowledged the need to learn the English language and the output of such schools are good quality students.

My understanding is that the above decision of the Constitutional Court is valid for the state control and subsidized public schools like the Laboratory Schools, BUT not for international standard Private Schools which never receive any support from the state.

Picture : International Education symbol courtesy of 123RF