In Search of the Excellent School: A Case Study of an Indonesian International Standard School in Improving Its Capacity Building

Abstract

Improving school capacity building has become one of the major themes in research on educational effectiveness. This study investigates the implementation of the International Standard School (SBI) policy in Indonesia which can be seen as an example of the efforts of a particular country to improve school capacity building. Disappointingly little is understood about people’s perception about educational activity, in this case, pertaining to international standard schools. Using the program coherence dimension of a capacity building framework, a qualitative study was conducted in a secondary school located in a small region in West Java, Indonesia, that is involved in the program. This study found that the interpretation of the SBI policy was changing, and that establishing international standard classrooms is the salient aspect of the implementation of the policy. This study revealed that becoming an SBI school has positive consequences with regard to the acknowledgment of its quality by the central government. One consequence is that the SBI School can collect from parents extra funds amounting to about ten times more than the school receives from the central government. The document analysis reveals the SBI School’s major difficulty in fulfilling the ‘international requirements’ is the mastery of the English language by their teachers.