Jakarta. The education system in Indonesia is still facing several challenges, including low teacher competence, decreased student enthusiasm for learning, and persistent physical infrastructure issues.

Teachers and educational staff must come up with innovations and find solutions to address these limitations. This is the approach taken by two school principals from Karo Regency, North Sumatra, Serma Ulipa Simbolon and Viadya Stella Tololiu.

When Serma was first assigned to head the SDN 040470 elementary school in Linggajulu, Simpang Empat, Karo a year ago, she was shocked by the school's condition. The building was in a very poor state, and it had been decades since the walls were last painted. The doors and locks were damaged. There were even bee nests in the office. It also lacked access to sanitation.

“We had to use the bathroom at residents' homes or hold it until we got home. The children urinated everywhere, so by midday, there was a foul smell. It was uncomfortable for [the students] to learn at school," Serma said.

There was also another problem. The teachers had lackluster competence, some even only chose to teach in a conventional manner. This prompted local residents to think twice before sending their kids to SDN Linggajulu, even preferring to have their children study in other villages or districts. As a result, the school only had a total of 90 students. In 2018, local residents even held a protest because the school had not improved its quality.

Social Innovation

Serma immediately tried to identify the problems, citing the leadership factor as one of the top reasons why the school had failed. She then initiated a social innovation that involved a collaboration between the school and the village. Despite the lack of access to clean water, there was a nearby well that students could use.

“We approached the village officials and participated in a local meeting. I told the forum that the school belongs to the village of Linggajulu, and is a place for educating future generations. So, we must work together to improve the quality of the school,” Serma said.

Serma’s presentation touched the village officials and residents, who then worked together to donate water from the well to the school and even build a pipeline.

Reports were also made about the school’s frequent damage and dirtiness. She found out that local youth had been loitering around the school. The village officials helped Serma stop the youth from causing further harm to the school. Things have been improved since then.

After improving the school facilities, Serma decided to focus on improving the teacher's competence. She formed a community of teachers who taught at the school. This Sabar community -- which stands for "Sabtu Belajar" ('Saturday Lessons") -- bring together the teachers to learn from each other over the weekend. They all shared the problems that they faced, and looked for solutions together.

Serma had learned all these tricks by joining the PINTAR program held by the Tanoto Foundation back in 2018. Serma at the time was a teacher at SDN 040460 Brastagi. She admitted that the program had taught her how to be more creative.

“I shared what I had applied in terms of active learning. Since I still have all the materials, photos, and videos, I share them [with the local teachers]. I also share the PINTAR materies to other teachers and schools because they are well-suited to develop a new learning paradigm. These PINTAR materials are very practical to apply,” she explained.

Viadya Stella Tololiu's Story

Viadya Stella Tololiu is a principal at SD Filadelfia School in Karo.

She came up with an innovation that boosted the learning ecosystem using a gamification approach. By adopting popular game models, Viadya was able to motivate children into learning.

"The focus is on teachers creating gamified learning that uses game methods. Learning becomes like a competition or game where students earn scores or progress through different levels," said Viadya, who also participated in the Tanoto Foundation’s PINTAR program in 2020-2021.

The games varied. For example, Viadya created a treasure hunt game with questions related to the subjects, with different levels of difficulty. If students could answer a question, they would move on to the next level with harder questions until they found a "treasure".

“This keeps the kids active and enhances the learning experience. We see significant improvements in students’ report cards in 2024,” she said.

Viadya explained that today’s challenges for teachers are not just the learning materials themselves but also competing with social media platforms like YouTube and TikTok.

“Kids get bored quickly at school. If we don’t change our teaching methods, they won’t be interested,” she added.

 PINTAR Program

The PINTAR training from the Tanoto Foundation has helped teachers avoid monotonous teaching styles and engage students more actively. Serma said that the students had also become more motivated with this new approach. Teachers have also become more active.

Serma also encouraged SDN Linggajulu teachers to join various workshops to gain more experience.

“This Learning Leadership Innovation is slowly changing the community’s view of SDN Linggajulu. Changing people’s perception from negative to positive isn’t quick—it took almost a year for the mindset to change,” she said.

This innovation had helped Serma win first place as the innovative school principal in North Sumatra. This competition was part of the teacher jamboree program, and was organized by the Education Ministry.

“The first-place winners from each province are invited to Jakarta for the award ceremony and five favorite innovations will be selected. I hope we make it,” Serma said, as she had already arrived in Jakarta.

Second-place winner Viadya said that the PINTAR training had inspired her to create the gamification method.

“At that time, gamification was used for online training for teachers and principals during the pandemic. I thought if it could be applied to kids, it would be even more fun, since they love playing games like Mobile Legends and others,” she said.

Since then, Viadya replicated the gamification method used in the Tanoto Foundation training and applied it to teaching 170 students at SD Filadelfia School.

“The challenge is that teachers must keep being creative while teaching through play. We will continue to develop this method in the future,” said Viadya, who has been the school principal for nine years.

The Tanoto Foundation's PINTAR program (Innovation Development for Learning Quality) aims to improve the quality of basic education in Indonesia by enhancing the skills of teachers, leadership quality and management of school principals, and supporting local governments in creating policies that foster improved learning quality through technical assistance to the government.