Sukapura is an area directly adjacent to Mount Bromo and mostly inhabited by the Tengger tribe. This unique tribe has many traditional ceremonies that are very popular with tourists. Therefore, students often miss school.
Representatives of students’ parents, school officials, and community leaders gathered for the INOVASI discussion session, and the discussions were very helpful for all parties to understand about the activities that take place in the community, especially cultural activities that often keep children out of school.
Although the participants were in general agreement about children’s rights to school, there was discussion about the problem of parents leaving the responsibility of education solely to the school.
Parents admitted that they rarely assist their children with studying at home because they are busy working in the fields. There were also parents who do not fully understand how to assist their children with studying at home. The discussion tried to settle that guiding children is the duty of parents and schools.
The discussion became more interesting during the session when they explored and mapped educational challenges that they have been facing in the Sukapura district. Parents and school representatives worked together to find solutions that fit the context in their area.
Parents were asked to provide information about the daily activities of mothers, fathers, daughters, and sons according to determined time ranges (morning, afternoon, evening, and night). Parents were also asked to discuss routine monthly activities of mothers, fathers, daughters and sons, including religious or customary activities.
The purpose of this activity was to see if there were differences in the types of daily or monthly activities carried out by mothers, fathers, daughters, and sons.
From this exercise, new parents realized that the roles of boys and girls should be balanced. For example, the playing hours for boys and girls should be the same, but, in reality, boys play more hours than girls.
At the end of the workshop, several agreements were made between the school and the community, including:
Parents agree that, when involving children in traditional ceremonies, efforts will be made to select times during school holidays or after school hours.
Parents will also limit the children’s habit of watching kuda lumping (horse dance) until late at night. The children will be asked to go home quickly and do their homework/chores so that there are fewer children missing school because they have not done their homework.
Because it often makes them sick, children will be limited in playing outside in the rain in order to take care of their health.
Parents will also try to provide healthy and sufficient food for their children when they go to school. For example, by having breakfast or bringing lunch from home, the children will not snack carelessly at school.
According to the INOVASI program facilitator, Anwar Sutranggono, the results of this activity were very useful in opening the minds of parents in the Tengger area.
Hopefully, this effort can be a good example of the cooperation between parents and schools to improve the quality of children’s education!
