Indonesia Kindergarten Program Expands

Audio lessons are transforming classrooms in Indonesia.

In the city of Pasuruan, in the East Java province of Indonesia, kindergartners sing along with an audio recording of their ABCs. Later, one mother tells their teacher that her child is more active, creative, and confident than she has ever seen her.

The teacher beams with pride, but doesn’t take full credit for the growth of her students. She thanks a program called Decentralized Basic Education 2 (DBE 2), which helps her weave interactive stories, games, and songs like this one into her core literacy and numeracy lessons. Training kindergarten teachers to use EDC’s Interactive Audio Instruction (IAI) is improving the quality of basic education across Indonesia.

In June 2009, the Ministry of Education in East Java—just one of the seven provinces originally involved in DBE 2—began using local government funds to support the introduction of the audio lessons in all 38 districts in that province.

“The commitment from the local government is a major step toward sustainability,” says EDC’s Rendy Djauhari. “We hope it will encourage other provinces to implement the IAI program in all of their kindergartens.”

With support from the U.S. Agency for International Development, EDC developed and implemented the series of 106 different 40-minute audio programs that teachers use to accompany their lessons over a single school year. The IAI kindergarten program encourages a hands-on, active approach to teaching and learning.

This new East Java initiative aside, EDC’s original program will have reached 113 kindergartens in 50 districts of Indonesia by 2010.

“The program addresses the needs of under- and untrained kindergarten teachers in Indonesia, while providing relevant, high-quality content to students,” says Djauhari. “It has helped immensely with students’ learning processes.”