Religious environmental education? The new school curriculum in Indonesia

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Funding

This work was supported by the Australia Research Council [DP130100051].

Notes

1. For example, a joint agreement between the Minister of State for the Environment and the Minister of National Education, 3 June 2005, KEP-07/MENLH/06/2005 and 05/VI/KB/2005 on the Development of Environmental Education, and Law No. 32 of 2009 on Environmental Protection and Management.

2. The Indonesian Minister for the Environment wrote in 2004: ‘We must acknowledge that our attention to and consciousness of environmental problems is still very low. This is caused by the fact that most people in Indonesian society have not yet awoken to a real perception of the environment’ (Kantor Menteri Negara Lingkungan Hidup 2004, ix, my translation). In 2005 a representative of the then-Department of National Education concluded that: ‘The present system of environmental education training is not effective. The teaching methods are dominated by lectures. Curriculum are tight and time for environmental education is limited; besides, the materials are difficult to be incorporated into the curriculum. There is no clear target for the implementation of environmental education. The involvement of other institutions in the implementation of environmental education is still low’. (Parus 2005, 67)

3. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for this point.

4. The famous differentiation of education about, for and in the environment was made by Arthur Maurice Lucas in his PhD thesis (Lucas 1972, 98ff).

5. Seven per cent follow Protestantism, 2.9% Catholicism, 1.7% Hinduism, and a smaller percentage Buddhism; since 2006, Confucianism is the sixth recognised religion (BPS).

6. Pancasila has been a guiding ideology and constant inclusion in Citizenship teaching since Indonesia became independent in 1945, though different regimes and governments have used it in different ways (e.g. Morfit 1981; Parker 1992a, 1992b; Leigh 1991, 1992).

7. This level of schooling was also chosen for the larger project because students of this age are articulate; they have long been exposed to the values inculcated by schools, families and communities; and they have some awareness of community values and political issues.

8. All translations of the Curriculum and associated documents are the author’s.

9. These exams have a standardising and homogenising effect, flowing down through the whole system. Many teachers and students consider that the national examinations contradict the principles of student-learning centredness and local content of the competency-based curriculum. After much discussion, the current government is continuing with the external exams.

10. See, for example, Dyment, Hill, and Emery 2015; Jóhannesson et al. 2011.

11. There are many examples, see, e.g. the special issue of EER 14 (3) 2008.

12. From this point, for the sake of simplicity and clarity, I am talking about Islam, rather than the other five religions acknowledged in the Curriculum.

13. The Qur’an does not have a chronologically-ordered beginning, like the Bible. Instead, creation declarations are scattered throughout. For instance, ‘It was He who created all that is on the earth for you, then turned to the sky and made the seven heavens; it is He who has knowledge of all things (Q.S. 2005, 2, 29)’. ‘3 [I]t is He who spread out the earth, placed firm mountains and rivers on it, and made two of every kind of fruit; He draws the veil of night over the day. There truly are signs in this for people who reflect. 4 There are, in the land, neighbouring plots, gardens of vineyards, cornfields, palm trees in clusters or otherwise, all watered with the same water, yet We make some of them taste better than others: there truly are signs in this for people who reason (Q.S. 2005, 13, 3–4)’. ‘1 It is the Lord of Mercy 2 who taught the Qur’an. 3 He created man 4 and taught him to communicate. 5 The sun and the moon follow their calculated courses; 6 the plants and the trees submit to His designs; 7 He has raised up the sky. He has set the balance 8 so that you may not exceed in the balance: 9 weigh with justice and do not fall short in the balance. 10 He set down the Earth for His creatures, 11 with its fruits, its palm trees with sheathed clusters, 12 its husked grain, its fragrant plants. (2005, 55, 1–12).’

14. The forest fires of 2015 are now being reported as ‘almost certainly the greatest environmental disaster of the twenty-first century – so far’. (Monbiot, The Guardian, Oct 30, 2015).

15. Saniotis translates 7: 56 as ‘Do no mischief on the earth after it has been created’ (Saniotis 2012, 157).

16. The verse that is customarily cited to show this appointment is: ‘[Prophet], when your Lord told the angels, “I am putting a successor (khalifa) on earth”, they said, “How can You put someone there who will cause damage and bloodshed, when we celebrate Your praise and proclaim Your holiness?” but He said, “I know things you do not” (2005, 2, 30).’ The translator Haleem notes that ‘The term khalifa is normally translated as “vicegerent” or “deputy”. While this is one meaning of the term, its basic meaning is “successor”’ (2005, 4).

17. He also said that he had never found the Arabic word, al-bia, now used for ‘environment’, used in that sense in the books of fiqh of the classical period (Mangunjaya 2011, 42).