Teaching in Indonesia comes with a host of challenges: limited resources, low parent involvement, cultural differences, a constantly changing curriculum, the list goes on. The biggest struggle is the frequently reduced classroom time. I wrote about my frustrations with educational priorities previously but I want to expand upon that.

My school cancels or shortens classes for anything. Testing for the 12th graders? 10th and 11th graders stay home. A parade in the evening? School’s out early. A luncheon for a teacher making hajj? Shortened schedule for the rest of the school day, as well as class time missed.

Since the start of term a month and a half ago, I haven’t taught a complete, regularly scheduled week of class.

July 26-30 The first week was orientation.

August 5-6 School anniversary celebration, classes are canceled.

August 12 Classes were cut short and I never got an answer why

August 17 Indonesian Independence Day, no school

August 19 Classes shortened for the aforementioned lunch/hajj meeting AND I had to combine two lessons because they missed the previous week

August 24 Classes shortened for the elementary school Independence parade

August 26 Classes shortened for the middle school Independence parade

August 29 Last two classes of the day are cancelled for the town Independence Day parade

August 31 English club and all other extracurriculars cancelled for no reason

September 2 Class shortened for another parade (seriously, how many parades are there?)

September 2-3 Squished two lessons into one again

September 7 Classes shortened to introduce the student council

Here at school, everyone’s last priority is academics. The students attend history, math, science, English, German, Indonesian, Madurese, Arabic, economics, sociology, phys ed, art, and government classes but are they truly educated in those subjects? Indonesian schools block schedule which means if I don’t teach my classes one day, those students miss English for the whole week. They learn an abbreviated version of both this week’s and the next week’s material because I must squeeze two lessons into one. Comprehension is visibly diminished, but if we don’t plow through there’s bound to be another shortened day or cancelled class that would push us even further behind.

How are they learning anything when they’re attending fourteen to sixteen different subjects every week? Of course there’s cheating, of course there are low grades–Indonesia’s push for well-rounded students would require a Time-Turner à la Hermione Granger.

So the students cheat or fail tests on material they never properly learned, and the schools raise their scores and pass them all. I’ll never forget my principal’s address to the graduating seniors and their families last spring. He told them all that cheating is a problem and would not be tolerated. He also said any students who failed would be forced to repeat the grade. I almost cheered until he followed it up with “Thanks be to God, one hundred percent of our students passed!”

Thanks be to God indeed.

It’s a hell of a feedback loop: students pass only because teachers won’t fail them and they go on thinking the work they’ve done is adequate so they never increase their effort. But why? Parents refuse to send their children to a school with a high failure rate–or any failure rate at all–so the schools make it so no child fails. The appearance of success matters more than the success itself.

The conditions for “failure” and “success” are determined by the Ministry of Education in the significantly more affluent Jakarta, where education is very different than in rural Situbondo. Java is Indonesia’s most developed island; if it’s not working here, outside of Jakarta, I can’t imagine the state of education in Borneo or Sulawesi or the farthest reaches of Papua. A one-size-fits-all curriculum rarely works even in one school, let alone a whole country. The worst part is the students think they’re doing great; they hardly have to study and they always pass! Their work is accepted as good enough and they’re none the wiser.

When I’m feeling particularly pessimistic, I ask groups of students if they think the education they receive is a good one. I’m always met with a resounding yes. These students have no idea how badly they’re being cheated by the system cheating for them.