INOVASI East Java together with the Ministry of Religious Affairs Regional Office (MoRA Office) of East Java Province and the Probolinggo District Education Office held a Workshop on Sharing Experiences and Equalizing Perceptions of the Implementation of Kurikulum Merdeka (IKM) for elementary school (SD / MI) Level. This hybrid activity was carried out on 25-26 January 2023. For offline participants, the activity was carried out in Sidoarjo while online participants joined via Zoom.
Participants consisted of staff from the MoRA Office of East Java Province and the Probolinggo District Education Office, SD and MI supervisors, principals and teachers. “The activity was held out of concern for education, especially in East Java. PISA results showed that Indonesia’s literacy level was still low. Based on this, Kurikulum Merdeka was launched. For this reason, it has been formulated and implemented not only in schools but also in madrasah. Therefore, this workshop activity was carried out to increase the competence of supervisors to oversee the implementation of the Kurikulum Merdeka in madrasah,” said Sugiyo, Head of the Curriculum and Student Affairs Section Team for Madrasah Education, MoRA Office in East Java province, while providing reinforcement to all workshop participants.
Yusnita Ermiyanti, the principal of an elementary school from Probolinggo district who used to be an elementary school teacher in a multigrade school said that actually 3 years ago she already implemented the multigrade version of the IKM where she had to combine grade 1 and grade 2 students in one class. “Because there were only few students and limited number of teachers, we implemented the multigrade system where 2 classes were combined into 1 class. Grade 1 students joined Grade 2, so I had to implement differentiated learning in my classroom,” she explained.
MoRA Office of East Java province and INOVASI have designated 7 Madrasah in Sidoarjo as piloting targets, which are 5 MI schools included in the Decree of the Director General of Islamic Education as IKM implementers and 2 MI schools which are not part of the Decree. The selection of MI schools in Sidoarjo took into account ease of access and also the status of IKM implementers. The flow and stages of the IKM piloting activities are: 1) equalization of perceptions and initial briefings, 2) assistance in the preparation of the Madrasah Curriculum (Teaching Modules), 2) implementation assistance in learning, 3) development of a character strengthening program for Pancasila Student Profile Strengthening Project (P5) in RA andimplementation assistance, and ended with 4) joint monitoring visit and piloting reflection.