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00:00Hi everyone, welcome back.
00:02You're still with us here on The Sea Morning Show and we are just about headed for our
00:07first discussion of the morning.
00:08But first, just a quick reminder, today is May the 2nd and it is National Education Day
00:14or Hardiknas, which emphasizes the importance of education in building a better future for
00:21our little ones.
00:22That's right Paul, May the 2nd was chosen as Hardiknas because it coincides with the
00:28birth of Indonesia's father of education, Ki Hajar Dewantara, who has dedicated himself
00:33in developing the education system in our country.
00:37He also encouraged the nation to prioritize education as a mean of achieving social and
00:42economic progress by promoting a learning future.
00:45Meanwhile, for this year's Education Day, the theme is Bergerak Bersama Lanjutkan Merdeka
00:51Belajar, which is a continuation of the program from the previous year, which was launched
00:56by Education, Culture, and Research and Technology Minister, Nadiem Makarin.
01:01Education Day is not only essential for students, but also for educators, teachers, for their
01:08efforts and dedication in providing better quality education in the nation.
01:13That's why today, it was May Day, they had a holiday, and then the 2nd of May, they went
01:20into the school.
01:21Get back to school.
01:22It was Labor Day yesterday, that's right.
01:23That's right.
01:24And it's fitting as well, because to commemorate national education, it's only right that we
01:29welcome our first guest, which has the mission of providing better education here in Indonesia,
01:35especially to improve children's English skills with a variety of interactive and personalized
01:40classes.
01:41That's right.
01:42Now, to find out more, we're going to have a discussion with Skolahmu COO Radinka Akira.
01:47Good morning, Mbak Inga.
01:48Thank you so much for being here with us.
01:50Good morning.
01:51Happy National Education Day.
01:52Happy Hati Ignas.
01:53That's right.
01:54And happy National Education Day to my fellow educators and teachers as well.
01:57It's not said enough, right?
01:59We should celebrate them every day.
02:00Yes.
02:01They're actually, especially for the educators, they're actually the superheroes.
02:04It's a thankless job.
02:05That's right.
02:06Now, speaking about that, Mbak Inga, have you been in, especially the education system,
02:12whether that's in private sector or government sector itself, and, you know, is that why
02:17now you're devoting yourself in Skolahmu?
02:18Yeah, I think it goes way back.
02:21Okay.
02:22I was actually, you know, born in a middle class family.
02:27Both of my parents are working parents, and then, I don't know, teaching become my first
02:32job from my mom for my younger sister.
02:35Oh, it's in the family.
02:36Yeah, and then, but I think it's evolving from teaching my sister and then tutoring
02:42my neighbor.
02:43I think teaching always going to be side business for me or side job for me from the early age
02:51of my life, I guess.
02:53But, yeah, and then, I graduate with a degree in architecture, but during my university
03:00and college life, I also joined with the youth global organization called ISAC in Bandung,
03:06if you guys know.
03:09They were focused in education, sustainability, and health, and then, I involved in one or
03:15two projects there and ended up sent to Ukraine to teach in both public and private school
03:25there.
03:26Amazing.
03:27Back to Indonesia, enjoying my corporate life, don't have any, you know, didn't have any
03:34goes to education or teaching, but then, I think the turning point was when I was in
03:40a journey to find a school for my kids, and then, I was shocked because I think the schooling
03:46system had not changed at all.
03:49I ended up digging all of the resources in education, met a lot of people in education,
03:57and then, yeah, I jumped back to education work again, and then, I think I've been like
04:05two years manage private school in Jakarta, and then, founded Sekolah Moe in 2019.
04:122019, right?
04:13What a colorful journey.
04:14No, and it's true, and I completely agree with you.
04:17That really hits home with me that our world is evolving so fast, especially Indonesia
04:21is developing so quickly, and how come the educational system or curriculums are not
04:25kind of keeping up?
04:26It's kind of like the same thing that they go from year to year.
04:28Yeah, and the future happened right now.
04:30Yes.
04:31In every classroom.
04:32Absolutely.
04:33We're going through malls now.
04:34I always joke about this with Caroline as well, that when you listen to kids' conversations,
04:38everyone's speaking English these days.
04:39Why do you think, because Sekolah Moe does offer a lot of, obviously, programs, but from
04:44your perspective, why is English so integral for a children's development these days?
04:49Yeah, I think according to a lot of research, not just English, but learning foreign language
04:56is actually enhance our critical thinking and creativity.
05:02I think that's very important, also improving our brain intelligence, and then memory, the
05:10brain memory.
05:11Also, in addition to that, I also think the cognitive abilities is also increased by learning
05:19the foreign language, but especially English language.
05:23I think it's more about opportunity and access to all the academic materials around the world.
05:30It's more relevant these days as well, right?
05:32Yeah.
05:33Also, you were mentioning, especially in major cities, if we live in Jakarta, Surabaya, or
05:36maybe Bali, I think it's very common you will hear children speaking in English.
05:41But again, Indonesia is a very vast region where there are some rural areas where maybe
05:46the children don't even know what English language is because of this lack of English
05:52literacy because of an adequate or maybe unequal education system.
05:57Access.
05:58Access and also infrastructure-wise.
06:01So what's your take on this?
06:02I think my take, yeah, of course, unequal access to learning resources itself is already
06:07a barrier for education and unequal access to English proficiency as well.
06:14It's become the learning gap in Indonesia.
06:18I give you some example.
06:21During the pandemic, I assisted a lot of schools that want to upskill and upgrade their teachers
06:29to be able to conduct blended learning because we need to do the distance learning.
06:35And they know that in Sekolah Mu, we already did this since the beginning.
06:40But then I recall that all of the schools really need the access to the online materials.
06:51But in the same time, I've seen OECD, UNESCO, and a lot of global organizations gave a lot
06:59of materials for free, but all of them conduct in English.
07:05So there are a lot of learning gaps while students in big cities and even big cities
07:12in private schools can get those resources because they are already proficient in English.
07:18But a lot of students have more gaps on those because of the access to English learning.
07:26That is a perfect segue for us to talk about Sekolah Mu because you're obviously trying
07:32to bridge that gap.
07:34So tell us a little bit more about Sekolah Mu and what you're doing in order for us to
07:38kind of address some of these issues that we mentioned.
07:41Sekolah Mu itself, it's actually Sekolahnyamurit.
07:45Oh, it's not like your school, Sekolah Mu.
07:48Yeah, Sekolahnyamurit.
07:49So we try to be very student-centric on that.
07:54So we provide a lot of learning programs for high schoolers and then from preschoolers
08:01to high schoolers is a lot of programs.
08:07And also we conduct it with blended learning.
08:10So we combine face-to-face interaction as well with the learning activities online.
08:17And what we've seen today, the demand from parents and students is for English learning
08:23and enrichment is very high, quite high right now.
08:27So we have a program called Living English.
08:31We want to, you know, bring alive the joy of learning.
08:36So by Living English, we also want the students to have a confident and happy and learning
08:43with a fun and creative environment.
08:46So basically that's what we do.
08:48And it's good that you tap on confidence right there because some people, not only children,
08:54adults maybe, perhaps in Indonesia, sometimes they're not confident in conveying their thoughts,
08:59their opinions or even having conversation in English because they thought,
09:02well, it's not my first language.
09:04If I said it wrong, I have like a different accent.
09:07I don't want to be known as, you know, someone that knows it all.
09:10So how can you change and what kind of methods that you can implement to the children?
09:15The confidence is the key.
09:17And it's okay if you do something wrong, if you said something wrong.
09:19That's why we're learning together.
09:21Very interesting.
09:23Reflecting on my experience, I learn English from music, from movies, from books, things that I like.
09:32So what we do in Skolah, we actually have like four or three components that we would like to,
09:40you know, incorporate in our learning program.
09:43First, I think the creativity and the fun and then the exploration and also the collaboration.
09:50The creative and fun aspect, we want the children to have like sparks, like in English,
10:00and then happy just to be able to learn English and then create positive vibes in learning English,
10:08associate with learning English and, you know, just learn to play.
10:15And then I think the exploration part, we want the students to have, you know, exploration in new ideas,
10:25new materials, and then, you know, just new language for them.
10:31And then experiment with that and goes beyond the classroom.
10:34We want them to use it in the daily activities.
10:37And also the part of the collaboration, I think it's very important right now
10:43because even us in the, you know, working environment, we need the collaboration.
10:49And we think the students can learn from each other by doing like somehow we used to have like a project for them
11:01and then they will collaborate and create the unified products.
11:06And then they will, you know, present it together with the team as well for that.
11:12So those kind of methods, we think it's very important while we also have a value for local to global.
11:21We know we need to, you know, create the students to be able to become a global citizen right now.
11:31But we also don't want them to, you know, forget their roots.
11:38So we adapt Curriculum Merdeka in our learning program as well in the experience.
11:46We also conduct it with blended learning method.
11:49So we have offline face-to-face in the classroom, but we also have online in our learning management system
11:58because we believe that every students are different and we believe the students have the personalization.
12:05So I think it's important.
12:08The last factor, I think, is the teacher.
12:11Yes.
12:12Will be the, I think, the core for the learning.
12:17So we ensure that we have like a caring teachers that create and encourage the students to have a safe place to take risks,
12:28to be able to make mistakes, and then, you know, just to experiment with their new language.
12:35I think all of those methods and then combine with the assessment at the beginning of the program for sure.
12:42So we'll be able to know what level the kids are and to have a right intervention for them as well.
12:50Yeah.
12:51You've shared from your personal experience.
12:53Allow me to share a little bit from my personal experience.
12:55You used the term earlier about know-it-all.
12:56Yes.
12:57We can say, like, so English 20 years ago when I moved here.
13:01Believe it or not, I was an English educator at one of the schools.
13:05So one of the things that my students would always tell me, I'm like, you speak really well in class,
13:09but why is your progress a bit like stunted?
13:12And they say, I said, are you speaking at home or with your friends?
13:15Like, no, I don't want to, sir, because they'll say I'm so English if I'm speaking outside of class.
13:21And it seems that, you know, platforms like yours are changing that mindset.
13:25And I think it's really important, like growing confidence,
13:27allowing them to be able to do this outside of the classroom as well,
13:30is going to vastly improve their progress as well.
13:34So on that note, since this is Hardik Nas, what are your hopes for the future generations of Indonesia?
13:40It's very deep because my hope for future generation means hope for my kids as well.
13:45Absolutely.
13:46So I hope Indonesian kids have equal access to education.
13:51And then I hope Indonesian kids can become a lifelong learner who not just, you know, enjoy,
14:00but love learning, not just for like requirements or obligations.
14:06Just because they have to.
14:07Yeah.
14:07Yeah.
14:07Totally agree.
14:08Well said.
14:09Definitely.
14:10Amen.
14:11Yes.
14:11And you know, listening to your method and curriculum,
14:13it seems that you're kind of explaining an IB school or IB private school right here in Jakarta.
14:18And this is definitely, I think the only way to go is to have children to find research
14:23and mitigate any, you know, challenges they have to.
14:26And then you have that group effort together to collaborate.
14:28Yes.
14:29That very much, Maika.
14:29Collaboration.
14:30Thank you very much for being here with us, sharing about Sekolah MU.
14:33Many best success always.
14:34And if you want to find out more, just feel free to visit, correct me if I'm wrong, www.sekolah.mu, correct?
14:41Alright.
14:41Thank you so much.
14:43Thank you, Maika.
14:44And we're now set to take our next short break.
14:46We're past the halfway point of our show, but in case you did join us late, don't worry.
14:50We're going to recap some of our top stories from around the world when we return.