Diaspora e-Class in Indonesia - Essay Example

Table of Contents Visi dan Mission 3 I. Background 4 II.Organization Structure 6 IV. Current Sites 7 IV Smart Ekselensia, Bogor 7 IV.2 Takengon 1 High School, Aceh 9 V. Concept 10 V.1 Volunteers 10 V.2 Students 10 V.3 Lesson 11 VI. Conclusion 11 1. Visi dan Mission Vision: To positively contribute to Indonesia’s education system by providing equal access to education, to all Indonesian students through media such as Skype, and the Internet. This is in addition to also providing innovative education by teaching English to unfortunate students and as such, effectively supporting their future. Mission: - Provide online classes through Skype for unfortunate students in Indonesia. - Gather volunteer Indonesian students who are studying abroad to teach unfortunate students through Skype. - Motivating unfortunate Indonesian students to use English language. - Provide live inspiration for unfortunate - Sharing the cultures of other countries with unfortunate Indonesian students I. Background Based on the Indonesia Mengajar that was founded by Mr. Anies Baswedan and Diaspora Indonesia, Diaspora e-Class was founded on August 2013 in Toronto, Canada. Diaspora e-Class is a non-profit organization whose purpose is to gather Indonesian students studying abroad for the purpose of helping to teach online English classes to unfortunate students in Indonesia through Skype. In the middle of growing living standards, Indonesia’s education system has been improved over past years. This fact can be seen from the presence of numerous new educational institutions in Indonesia which provide international education standards. Of note is that although the total population of Indonesia is 250 million, a factor that has caused Indonesia to be the fourth largest most populous country in the world, there is only a small percentage of the Indonesian population that has managed to receive proper education. This is an indicator of the fact that most Indonesians haven’t clearly understood the prospects of their country. Indonesian students are essentially the backbone of the country. Therefore, Diaspora e-Class believes that it can make positive contributions to the country by providing impoverished Indonesian students with a proper education through the use of online education. By using the internet, it is now possible for unfortunate Indonesian students in remote area to access online education. Diaspora e-Class gathers volunteers from Indonesian students studying abroad to motivate as well as teach English to students from impoverished schools in Indonesia. The Indonesian school system is rather quite diverse and immense. With an estimated over 2.6 million teachers serving over 50 million students across more than 250,000 schools in different locations within the country, Indonesia’s school system is considered to be the third largest education system within the Asian region and the fourth largest education system globally. The rate of enrollment in primary schools located in poor districts is below 60%, a percentage with compares negatively to that of enrollment within well-off districts that tend to have universal enrolment. Although Indonesia has managed to make an impressive recovery after the debilitating effects of the economic crisis that rocked the late 90s, its education system is noted to under-perform as compared to other countries in respect to access to quality education services. It is in this regard that by offering courses in English, the Diaspora E-Class initiative hopes to play a critical role towards helping to improve the overall quality of education that Indonesia’s children are able to receive. II.Organization Structure Overseas: - Chairman: Jeihan Agri (University of Toronto, Toronto, Kanada) - Irfani Rahmi Ausri (McGill University, Montreal, Kanada) - Rey Reza Wiyatno (University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Kanada) - Kathleen Gondoutomo (Cornell University, New York, Amerika Serikat) - Rachel Ghaisani Suliono (McGill University, Montreal, Kanada) - Andrea Hartoyo (University of Alberta, Edmonton, Kanada) Indonesia: - Chairman: Steven Wongsoredjo (The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA) III. Activities I Diaspora E-Class conducts online English classes for unfortunate students in Indonesia. It starts from the primary school, junior high school, and senior high school. We believe that every individual has the right to access a proper education. Diaspora E-class has a dream that students can achieve high school diplomas and degrees through the use of online education. As a result of this, Diaspora E-Class can positively impact the quality of Indonesian human resources. IV. Current Sites IV.1 Smart Ekselensia, Bogor Smart Ekselensia is located at Parung, Bogor. Diaspora E-Class has been working with Smart Ekselensia since last year. There are more than 50 English online sessions per month. The teachers gave positive feedback citing that besides performing better in English, the students in the program are now more motivated. These pictures above convey some of Smart Ekselensia’s students’ activities when Diaspora e-Class visited them at summer 2015. Diaspora e-Class arranged two days “mix n mingle activities”. These activities included English quizzes and games. We awarded students prizes after the events. IV.2 Takengon 1 High School, Aceh Takengon 1 High School joined Diaspora e-Class in 2014. In two months, we have conducted hundreds of English online classes. During summer 2014, Diaspora e-Class visited Takengon 1 High School. The journey from Jakarta took 12 hours before the Diaspora e-Class team could arrive at Takengon, Aceh. The picture above portray images of young ambitious students at Aceh who will positively contribute for Indonesian future. Diaspora e-Class arranged mix n mingles activities with Takengon 1 high school students. V. Concept V.1 Volunteers Volunteers should sign up online. After volunteers are registered, the Diaspora E-Class team will approach the prospective volunteers. They will briefly introduce the format of the lessons as well as material that needs to be taught online. Every grade has its own requirements. After introduction, the volunteers can sign in through Diaspora E-class’s Skype account on a given schedule so as to teach Indonesian students. V.2 Students Diaspora E-class will approaches schools and establish if these schools are interested in our program before an arrangement can be made. For the effective running of the program in each school, it is important for at least one person to be in-charge of each school in the program. This will allow for there to be a person who can be contacted by Diaspora E-class to help in the successful resolution of issues if there happens to be any technical difficulties, or problems. Additionally, after setting-up all the necessary technological infrastructure including computers and the internet, the person in charge of the school will also arrange schedules for the students. The Diaspora E-Class volunteers will then be able to call the students at specific times through Skype. V.3 Lesson The class is divided into three divisions with each division representing the competencies of the students. Volunteers planning to teach students should first understand each division. These volunteers need to first advance the materials before entering the online class. V.3.1 Beginner Class V.3.2 Intermediate Class V.3.3 Advance Class VI. Conclusion Diaspora e-Class plans to support all the unfortunate students in Indonesia. We realize that the power of a country is measure from the quality of its human resources and not the natural resources. Therefore, as Diaspora e-Class, we feel that contributing to education is the first step towards causing Indonesia to growth as a strong country. By providing online class to unfortunate students in Indonesia, Diaspora E-Class will positively impact Indonesia’s future. Read More