Indonesia Conference Directory

In this paper, I demonstrate the insufficiency of developmental knowledge as the framework of early childhood education quality. For this purpose, I analyse two documents that currently govern the practice of Indonesian early childhood education, the Early childhood education standard and Early childhood education Curriculum 2013, focusing on their sections on developmental indicators and learning outcomes. While acknowledging that developmental knowledge is globally the dominant theoretical orientation that shapes the notion of “good” early childhood education, I argue that its use in Indonesian policy is problematic, at least, for the following three reasons. Firstly, an over-reliance on developmental knowledge has led to the absence of learning contents and outcomes that represent Indonesia-s national identity. An extreme example of this absence is the fact that no mention of the national philosophy Pancasila is made in both the Standard and Curriculum 2013 documents. Secondly, an over-reliance on developmentalism has disconnected the policy notion of quality early childhood education from the transformative vision of education in general. For example, even though contemporary early childhood practice has been influenced by such global agendas as Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and sustainable future, both the Standard and Curriculum 2013 have no developmental indicators and learning outcomes that address them. Thirdly, the use of developmental knowledge has obscured the vision of technological advance that supposedly is a core ingredient of the notion of quality early childhood education. Contemporary Indonesian early childhood education has been overshadowed by the technological-industrial revolution discourse. Nevertheless, both the Standard and Curriculum 2013 documents have no adequate space to address this issue. For early childhood education is part of Indonesia-s national education system and considering the belief around its contribution to the creation of a brighter, sustainable future, it is important to include these three issues as parts into its notion of quality. One of the possible policy options to take at this stage is to formulate a set of learning contents and outcomes that directly represent children-s competencies around those issues to accompany the existing limited developmentalistic curriculum.