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American Journal of Public Health Research
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The Implementation of a Tele-Homecare System with Service Oriented Architecture and HL7 Message Transmission Standard
Ching-Sung Wang

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The Influence of Ethanol on Pyruvate Kinases Activity in Vivo, in Vitro, in Silico
Lelevich Sergey Vladimirovich, Khrustalev Vladislav Victorovich, Barkovsky Eugene Victorovich, Shedogubova Tatyana Aleksandrovna

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Clinical and Histological Features in Wegener Granulomatosis
Li Cavoli Gioacchino, Passantino Rita, Bono Luisa, Tortorici Calogera, Ferrantelli Angelo, Giammarresi Carlo, Rotolo Ugo

American Journal of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology
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The Curse of Lymphatic Filariasis: Would the Continual Use of Diethylcarbamazine Eliminate this Scourge in Papua New Guinea?
Anne Lanham, Lillian Mwanri

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Strengthening Teacher’s Competence in Implementing 2013 Curriculum through Empowering the Management of Junior Secondary School (JSS) Subject Teacher Working Group (STWG)

Idris HM Noor*, Agus Santosa*

Research Centre, Office of Educational Research and Development, Ministry of Education and Culture, Jakarta, IndonesiaFaculty of Law, Politics, and Social Science, Open University of Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia

Abstract: This study aims to investigate the JSS teachers’ knowledge and skill and to strengthen STWG to solve the teachers’problems in implementing 2013 curriculum. Using document analysis, focus group discussion and in-depth interviews, research found out that the quality of teachers is still below the average of the government achievement target. The study also revealed that JSS teachers find difficult to describe students’ learning achievement qualitatively. To strengthen teachers’ competence and skill, it is needed to empower JSS STWG roles to share and discuss the implementation of the 2013 curriculum at their class through better teaching and learning instruction.

Keywords: curriculum, human resource development, teacher, teaching and learning, STWG

Citation: Idris HM Noor, Agus Santosa, Strengthening Teacher’s Competence in Implementing 2013 Curriculum through Empowering the Management of Junior Secondary School (JSS) Subject Teacher Working Group (STWG). American Journal of Educational Research, 6 (6). 858-868. January 2018. doi:10.12691/education-6-6-40

1. Introduction

In the last decade, a teacher plays a very important role in strengthening human resource. The governemnt of Indonesia puts a teacher as a key person in implementing 2013 curriculum in school as it is stated in the regulation of Ministry of Education and Culture No 16/2007 about the academic qualification standard and teacher’s competencies both academic and professional competencies in implementing curriculum. The law of Indonesian government No 14 of 2005 about teachers and lecturers, the government regulation No 19 of 2005 about the national standard of education, and the government regulation of 74 of 2008 about teachers also state that the teachers should have the teachers’ academic qualifiation minimum Bachelor of Arts (Strata 1 or Diploma IV), competence, and teacher’s certification, then they should enhance their competence continuously.

In relation to the teacher’s competencies, it is very important that Subject Teacher Working Group (STWG) as an association of teacher at Junior Secondary School (JSS) keeps an important strategy to strengthen teacher’s competencies through discussion and training. However, the teacher’s understanding about the curriculum have not achieved the target as seen in the following figure where most of the subject teachers are still lack about the concept of curriculum, analysis of teaching material, and planning of instructional model.

STWG as an association of teachers at JSS as well as Senior Secondary School (SSS) and Vocational School (VS) aims to help teachers solve their problems in teaching and learning in school particularly the implementation of the 2013 curriculum. In STWG, teachers of the same subject from several schools discuss how they implement the 2013 curriculum, consisting of syllabus design, instructional planning and implementation, designing teaching and material, teaching methodology, evaluation, the use of IT, and other problems they found in their class. To empower the STWG to help strengthen teachers, this study aims to find out the teachers’ knowledge and skill about 2013 curriculum, the problems of JSS teachers in implementing 2013 curriculum, and to strengthen STWG as a way out to solve the teachers’ problems in implementing 2013 curriculum.

2. Literature Review

2.1. 2013 Curriculum Implementation

The implementation of the 2013 curriculum cannot be separated from the role of teachers as key persons in conducting teaching and learning instruction in the class. The success of the 2013 curriculum implementation depends on the teacher’s competence as stated in Indonesia regulation No.14 of 2005, article 10 that there are pedagogic, individual, social, and professional competencies. For teachers, of the four competencies (pedagogic, social, professional, and social competencies), pedagogic and professional competencies play a very important role to make teachers succeed in teaching and learning instruction for 2013 curriculum implementation.

In the implementation of curriculum, most teahers find difficult to implement integrated science and social science, describing learning achievement, understanding the content of student’s book, analyzing questions in students’ book, doing authentic assessment, conducting scientific instruction, and designing a plan of instructional teaching and learning implementation. Therefore, to strengthen the teacher’s competencies in implementing 2013 curriculum, one of the strategies developed by Indonesian government is to empower STWG, where one of its functions is as a media and deliverable to be used by teachers.

2.2. Teacher’s Roles in Implementing the 2013 Curriculum

A teacher plays several important roles in implementing 2013 curriculum in the class particularly in teaching and learning instructional, such resource person, partner, guide, evaluator, parents, friends, instructor, and others [1]. In designing teaching material for example, a teacher as a designer should be able to design and choose suitable material for their certain level and needs of his/her students accompnied with the varied kinds of teaching method. A teacher also needs to understand his/her students character and the class management such individual work, pair work, group work, and classical work. All these critical roles employing the types of professional learning strategies are needed to implement the content of the 2013 curriculum as reflecting the teacher’s professional carrier. Therefore, it is important for a teacher to be a professional learner because professional learning can have a powerful effect on teacher skills and knowledge and on student learning and this teacher’s professional learning is of increasing interest as one way to support the increasingly complex skills students need to learn in preparation for further education and work in the 21st century [2].

2.3. Subject Teacher Working Group (STWG)

Teacher working group (TWG) and Subject Teacher Working Group (STWG) have been acknowledged as the most appropriate and effective paths available to teachers to help teachers as members of TWG and STWG implement the 2013 curriculum.

There are several teacher’s activities conducted in STWG to help teachers meet their needs to implement the 2013 curriculum, as follows:

• Looking for information through some activities, such as: discuss and consult the activities with the head of the educational office, review relevant literature, and analyze the secondary data

• Develop the concept of STWG

• Conduct FGD to get information about the activities in STWG and concept of teacher training model program STWG from resource person

• Develop the grillwork of instrument followed by developing instrument

• The instrument is verified at school and FGD with the district office, head teachers, and teachers

• Analyzing data using descriptive qualitatif.

Figure 1. The Strategy of STWG) to implement the 2013 Curriculum (Source. [3]. Standard of operational implementation procedure of STWG)

At STWG, teachers share their experiences about the implementation of the 2013 curriculum at their own classes, including instructional teaching and learning planning, problem solving of the teaching and learning found by the members, syllabus design, instructional media, teaching methodology, material development, and evaluation of the students’ achievement. In order to be professional teachers, they also conduct self study to enhance their knowledge and improve their teaching strategies. Self study is also to enhance knowledge about learning and teaching perspective, better understand the relationship between teaching and learning in substantive ways about their own practice [4].

The progressive improvement of their practicing teaching in the class also needs instructor’s coaching and expert’s support to guide and facilitate teachers in teaching practice in the context of their practice. The role of the experts is to help teacher implement their lesson plan through observation during the teacher teaching activities in the class. Based on the observation of the implementation of the teaching in the class, the expert holds a discussion to give a feedback to teachers about their strengths and weaknesses during their teaching in the class. The feedback from expert is considered as an important input to improve teaching at the following meeting. The activities held by the expert to help teacher become a professional teacher will enhance their knowledge and experience in improving their students’ competence and skill as stated in the 2013 curriculum. Therefore, it is a must that a teacher should have an additional training through STWG both in and on-service education programmes. Not only the teachers must have the competencies (pedagogic, social, professional, and social competencies) but the teachers should be given a chance to enhance their professional ability, continuous engagement with evolving pedagogical theories and methods and ways to correlate them with one’s practice in critical and reflective framework, and as their expectation for an in-service teacher education programme and to put their learning in teaching practices and in related context [5].

It is expected that a teacher professional development programme should create a learning environment. The programmes are supposed to help every participant set and work for his/her own goals of increasing competence, skills, knowledge and self-confidence. It is also expected that through these programmes, teachers should be provided opportunities to fulfill a set of goals and to visualize the next stage of achievement. The other expectation is that the programs will create a dynamic and open system where teachers’ professional development programmes should not be rigid and specific goals instead should be opened for multiple entries, diverse trajectories of growth and a multiplicity of self-assessment.

2.4. The Organization of STWG

STWG is an organization of subject teacher’s working group at Junior Secondary school, Senior Secondary School, and Vocationa School.

The board of STWG is very simple consisting of the head, secretary, and chamberlain as the main board and head of planning division, head of development organization, administration and facilities, head of human resources, and the members from public and private schools. However, there is a clear task to manage the needs of teachers from different schools who bring different problems of implementing 2013 curriculum.

The leadership team drawn from different school worked collaboratively and seemed to be enthusiastic and working hard to meet the needs of the members by coordinating intellectual work together, stepping outside the boundaries of their own social and level of knowledge and experience between the experienced and novice teachers.

To develop a teacher’s profession, there are at least six STWG that should be exist in every school (civic, Indonesian language, mathematics, science, social science, and English).

Figure 2. Structure of STWG organization (Source. [3]. Standard of operational implementation procedure of STWG)

The main activities of STWG is to analyze curriculum, design teaching and learning material, the development of instructional teaching and learning, class management, design teaching and learning methodology and instructional media, learning evaluation, and peer teaching. STWG also conducts some activities to help teachers continue to develop their professional in every school or at the district educational office and are monitored and evaluated by the supervisor and head of the school, such as:

• The training of the teacher tutorial by the instructor who have been attended the training at the national, provincial, and district level,

• The professional improvement, such as working collaboratively in solving each member problem, the quality of educational process and teaching instructional, developing teaching material as well teaching methodology, designing evaluation of student’s learning achievement,

• The development of teacher’s administration, such as developing syllabus design, planning of teaching and learning activities, the use of facilities in teaching activities, the use of IT, and

• The implementation of the training and activities done by the member of the STWG in school [5].

The flexibility of STWG is to allow the teachers to fix their teaching schedule and their training schdedule, so that they can manage their teaching task and their professional improvemnet as seen in some STWG such as science group runs the group well while others do not [6].

The support of institutional and the teacher initiative and motivation bring the teacher achieve a professional carrier particularly to successful implementation of the 2013 curriculum as needed for the 21ˢᵗ century teacher [7] quoted Cochran-Smith argumentation that there needs to be ‘more attention to what teachers themselves need to know, and institutional supports need to be in place in order to meet the complex demands of preparing teachers for the 21ˢᵗ century. They suggest that sophisticated forms of teaching are needed to develop student competencies such as deep mastery of challenging content, critical thinking, complex problem-solving, effective communication and collaboration, and self-direction.

2.4.1. The Objectives of the STWG

• To broaden the capabilities and competences of the teachers especially for syllabus design, developing teaching material, instructional method and strategies

• To give a chance to a working group to share their experiences

• To enhance teacher’s knowledge and skill and to adopt the innovative method in professional teaching and learning instruction

• To help members of the working group implement their teaching tasks in school

• To change their cultural work in developing teacher’s profession through activities for professional development in STWG

• To enhance the quality of educational process and teaching instructional as seen in the students’ learning achievement

• To enhance the teacher’s competences through actively attending activities at STWG

2.4.2. The Indicator of the Successful of STWG

• In the class, there is a quality implementation of instructional teaching using joyful learning.

• There is an interaction of sharing experience and feedback among teachers as a member of STWG

• There is an increasing and enhancing of teacher’s knowledge, skill, motivation, work, and attitude of STWG members in implementing teaching and learning process professionally in their class

• There is an increasing the quality of instructional teaching and learning as seen at the STWG activities and its usefulness for teachers, students, school, government, and the STWG itself.

2.5. The Management Structure of STWG from the Ministry of Education and Culture down to the School/Learning Center

Figure 3. The Responsibility of Central, Province, District, Sub-District Educational level, School level, and STWG (Source [3]. Standard of Operational Implementation Procedure of STWG)

Figure 4. The Aspect of STWG (Source. [3]. Standard of operational implementation procedure of STWG)

Figure 3 explains the responsibility of institutions concerning the implementation of STWG from central office to school and STWG. The institution that has main responsibilty to encourage teacher in implementing the 2013 curriculum is STWG, where this group work plays a very important role in helping the teacher to get a training, sharing opinion and experiences among teachers within the same subject.

Figure 4 shows that the aspects of STWG in implementing the 2013 curriculum, consisting of organization, program, human resource, facilities, management, budgeting, monitoring and evaluation. Each aspect has its own role.

2.6. The Comparison of Teacher Training for 2013 Curriculum Implementation Set up by the Government and STWG

Table 1 compares the aspect of the government and STWG training model in implementing 2013 which mainly consists of pariticipants, instructors, training material, facilities, method, time, location, and budget. In the government model, all eight aspects of the training are decided and prepared by Directorate of Basic and Middle Education, Ministry of Education and Culture (MOEC) where the District Office and the Teacher Training Institutions are not involved in deciding the training. Those institutions run the training based on the rules and guides determined by the government. This model of training is set up without considering the specific needs of teachers as the trainees as well as the condition of each district education and each district training institutions that are responsible for the success of the 2013 curriculum implementation in school. On the other side, STWG model considers the needs of teacher, schools both private and government schools as well as the condition of each district education and each district training institutions. This model is set up by teachers as members of STWG supported by the Educational District Office as an educational policy maker in the district and the Education Quality Assurance Agency (EQAA). STWG plans the training based on the needs of the teachers to solve the problem of teachers in teaching and learning in their own class, such as teaching method, material development, the use of IT and other teaching learning media.

Table 1. The comparison of government model and STWG model training

The difference of these two models of the 2013 curriculum training to enhance the teachers’ competences in implementing curriculum in school arises the gap of what and how to make the curriculum implementation be successful. The effect of the government model, the training does not achieve the target qualitatively by means that the teachers as trainees do not understand comprehensively the content of the curriculum particularly the methods and techniques of teaching and learning their subject studies in the class. Quantitatively, this model is successful to train a number teachers in a determined schedule and it is regarded as a successful way of fulfilling administration especially the use of allocated budget.

3. Research Method

This study employs a qualitative study using a combined secondary data and comprehensive Focus Group Discussion (FGD) on how to strengthen teacher’s competence in STWG to implement the 2013 curriculum. The document of STWG, 2013 curriculum, and the teacher competencies were analyzed, then the result of the analysis was verified with the group of teachers at STWG through FGD. The participants were asked to clarify and elaborate the specific points about the data presented and explored the information related to the teachers’ experiences in implementing 2013 curriculum.

Data analysis was to describe and analyze the teachers’ knowledge of 2013 curriculum, teachers’ skills in developing planning of instructional implementation and evaluation, the problems of JSS teachers in implementing 2013 curriculum, and data of FGD about the teachers competence as well as the implementation of 2013 curriculum. The process of the qualitative data analysis used the procedures of examining, categorizing, tabulating the frequency of events, recombining evidence, using arrays to display the data, creating displays, ordering the information, using various interpretations, triangulation, and making a conclusion. Both data of the documentation and the data gathered from FGD are combined and described before taking a conclusion.

4. Findings and Discussion

4.1. Findings

4.1.1. The Teachers’ Knowledge and Skill about 2013 Curriculum

The evaluation of teacher’s knowledge about the implementation of 2013 curriculum in six main subjects conducted during the training in 2016 shows that each subject teacher has different competence and capability in understanding the 2013 curriculum, as shown in the Table 2.

Data shows that the quality of teachers is still below average of the government achievement target. Among six subject teachers who had been evaluated and monitored during the training, the civic teachers perform better in understanding the concept of curriculum, the English teachers are capable of analyzing teaching material, social science teachers got 55.71 under the national standard grade of 60,00 have enough competence in planning of instructional model than other subject teachers. On the other side, of the three aspects evaluated to six subject teachers that civic teacher have a very limited knowledge and competence in planning of instructional model and analysis of teaching material. The varieties of teacher competence level may greatly be influenced by the level of their pre service training from different quality of their universities and their teaching experience.

Table 2. Teacher’s knowledge about 2013 curriculum

Figure 5. Teacher’s skill in developing planning of instructional implementation and evaluation (Source: Raw data from the Curriculum Centre [8] to be analysed 2017)

The discussion during FGD summarizes that most of the six subject teachers complaint that the STWG has not been given fully authority to determine their own policies especially to determine the instructors who have better insight and experience about 2013 curriculum implementation. The trainers are mostly determined by MOEC and provincial educational office. The educational office do not consider the problems of each school and the teachers because their target is to fulfil the number of teachers be trained quantitatively ignoring the quality of training.

To empower the STWG, it is needed that the teachers as member of the STWG work collaboratively with the experts and national, provincial, district educational offices to support the STWG with good facilities, instructional training, enough budgeting, and the commitment of all STWG members.

Figure 5 shows teacher’s skill in developing planning of instructional implementation and developing evaluation based on the 2013 curriculum.

Teacher’s skill in developing planning of instructional implementation and evaluation generally have fulfilled the minimum national standard of the teacher’ competencies grade of 60. The grade of 69.85 and 68.85 quantitatively is over 60 of national minimum standard of competence achievement. However, this achievement does not fully represent the equality of a professional teacher. To get a deep understanding, the clarification of the secondary data was discussed with teachers and school principals at FGD. The description of qualitative student’s evaluation result for a semester report was one of hot issues the teachers raised during the discussion. They claim that most of the teachers still unable to use the form of the qualitative evaluation designed by the central office. For example, to describe the individual students’ daily activities, there is no specific technique to describe the student’s performance of each subject study activity. Evethough teachers have achieved the 68.85 as seen at Figure 5, they still find constraints to elaborate form of evaluation to their class.

4.1.2. The Problems of JSS Teachers to Implement 2013 Curriculum

Most JSS teachers still find difficult to implement the 2013 curriculum, eventhouh they have already attended a training conducted by the Educational District Office and EQAA, as seen in the following figure.

Figur 6 identifies eight problems of JSS teachers in implementing 2013 curriculum in their teaching activities. The most difficult aspects found by JSS teachers in the curriculum implementation is to describing students’ learning achievement of 69.22 percent followed by doing authentic assessment of 67.2 percent due to the unstandardized assessment consisting of attitude and knowledge. The attitude assessment consists of observation, self and peer evaluation, and journal, while knowledge assessment consists of written test, observation during students’ discussion of a certain topic determined by teacher, ask and answer questions, conversation, and doing a project (MOEC 2015 No 53/2015, Mansur, 2015, Helmi, 2014). On the other hand, the implementation of integrated social science occupies the lowest teacher’s difficulties of the 2013 curriculum implementation. Other five components of the lower teachers’ difficulties range from 7.15 percent to 45.5 percent.

Figure 6. The difficulties of JSS teacher in implementing 2013 curriculum (Source. Raw data from the Curriculum Centre [8] to be analyzed in 2017)

The summary of FGD attended by the teachers as member of STWG, the district educational office, supervisors, head teachers, and EQAA shows that the teachers claim they understand well about content of the student’s book. They also claim that they use other references taken from magazines, hot news from newspaper, authentic material they create from the empirical social and community lives to enrich the textbook. However, they find difficult to describe students’ learning achievement and the authentic assessment. The format of individual student’s evaluation has not been standardized that make them difficult to describe their students attitude in a student’s semester report. They complaint that the current format of the individual evaluation from the central government and the district educational office is difficult to use and time consuming. Therefore, teachers hope the government can design a simple format of the individual evaluation, so that they can it use easily for a big class.

Besides, the lack of the 2013 curriculum implementation is also influenced by some factors such as the teacher training for 2013 curriculum implementation conducted by the government cannot accommodate the teachers’ needs and the training is not be attended by all teachers due to the time and budget limitation of the school. Therefore, the selected teachers who were sent to the training are supposed to disseminate and share their knowledge and experience to other teachers in school. However, the teachers in disseminating their knowledge and experience during 2013 curriculum training do not share and explain to their colleges thoroughly. Besides, there are several weaknesses of the training, as follows:

• The participants are placed in one class without considering the level of participants’ knowledge and experience,

• Training facilities are not appropriate enough for a training, such as training material, training tool, and training rooms, so that the high motivated teachers are very disappointed,

• The time schedule of training is on the same of teachers’ activities of teaching process, so that most teachers are not concentrated well for the training due to they still think about their task in school,

• During a training, there are very limited teaching practice as a way to strengthen and improve teachers’ knowledge and experiences, and

• Some instructors are not capable enough to train the 2013 curriculum due to the limitation of experience and knowledge which affects the training material cannot be grasped well by the participants.

In order the teachers be able to implement the 2013 curriculum well, the government has been conducting a training for teachers, however the training does not give much influence to improve teachers competence in teaching learning process based on the 22013 curriculum. Therefore, STWG model plays an important role to help teachers improve their teaching activities in implementing the 2013 curriculum.

4.1.3. Strengthening STWG as a Way out to Solve the Teachers’ Problems in Implementing 2013 Curriculum

To support STWG to help teachers implement the 2013 curriculum, a teacher should engage and actively participate in STWG activities decided by member of the STWG. Besides, a teacher should keep a role as a research and implementors and developing teaching innovations. The discussion of FGD reveals that there are several strategies to empower STWG in helping teachers implement the 2013 curriculum in the teaching and learning activities in class, as follows:

a. All member of STWG should share their experiences and knowledge among the members about their problems of teaching and learning found during the process of instructional learning of the 2013 curriculum content

b. Member of STWG work collaboratively to design a plan of instructional learning

c. Member of STWG work collaboratively to design a training for member of STWG and other teachers who have no chance to attend the 2013 curriculum

d. Member of STWG work collaboratively to write and fill in the student semester report

e. Every member of STWG is supposed to identify the problem of their school and the branch of STWG in each of the school

f. The committee conducts regular meeting of to map the problems identified by every school of the STWG member, then set up the schedule to conduct a meeting or a training to solve the problems. The discussion is mostly based on the member’s needs which have been put in the STWG program.

The activities of STWG are based on the program designed and arranged collaboratively among all members, the committee, and the district of educational office, particularly to help teachers implement the 2013 curriculum in their teaching and learning process at their class. Howeever, there still some aspects of the curriculum content that are unable to solve. For the unsolved aspects such as the description of authentic assessment and the individual student’s evaluation which have not been standardized, STWG still consults with the curriculum centre and the directorate of basic and secondary education in central government and provincial educational office.

On the other hand, to sustain the successful of the 2013 curriculum implementation, the STWG members create and keep their best teaching strategies, the share them to other teachers who are not member of STWG. For example, develop teaching and learning material, develop teaching and learning techniques, and write test item of each subject study for their semester and final examination other than national examination which have been prepared by the examination centre office. They also develop a structural guide of test items for their students based on the 2013 curriculum and develop a simple guide of how to use Computer Assisted Test (CAT) for the on line national examination.

Besides a regular meeting at the district office, the famous facilities used by member of the STWG to inform and share each other information about best practice and the problems they found in their class is the social media like WhatsApp (WA), twitter, and email.

Members of STWG also keep their strong motivation to implement best teaching and learning strategies, and at the same time STWG improves the programs and invites resource persons to help train the member of STWG about the unsolved aspects found in their classes. The STWG also sets up a rule under the district of educational office to strengthen the STWG organization.

4.2. Discussion

4.2.1. The Teachers’ Knowledge and Skill about 2013 Curriculum

The varieties of teacher competence level with the highest grade of 62.18 in Indonesian language teachers and the lowest grade of 36.21 for civic teachers indicate that there is a different level of teachers experience in teaching, the level of their education graduate (BA, master, or doctor graduate), and the level of their preservice training from different quality of their universities. Among six subject teachers who had been evaluated and monitored during the training, the quality of teachers is still below average due to the effect of teachers receive little professional guidance by external facilitators, principals, and supervisors and little mentoring by experienced teachers [6].

This level of graduate and experience have much influence to teachers in understanding the 2013 curriculum than their pre teacher training at higher education because before the curriculum is implemented, core teachers and school principals have to be trained on what and how the 2013 curriculum. We are also aware that the implementation of the training still has weaknesses due to the centralized planning of the program of the 2013 curriculum training for teachers and the unempowered STWG to set up and implement the training programs to meet the needs of the teachers.

The achievement skill of teachers in developing planning of instructional implementation and evaluation grade of 69.85 and 68.85 quantitatively is over 60 of national minimum standard of competency achievement generally accommodate some components of professional teacher. As a professional teacher, one should be capable of applying appropriate and fair methods of assessment to enable learners to share responsibility for their own learning and assessment, setting goals that stretch and challenge (http://www.et-foundation.co.uk). The standard of professional teacher means that he/she has a professional knowledge and understanding, and professional skills [2].

4.2.2. The Problems of JSS Teachers in Implementing 2013 Curriculum

The constraint of the JSS teachers in implementing the 2013 curriculum even though they have already attended a training conducted by the Educational District Office and EQAA is to describe students’ learning achievement of authentic assessment consisting of attitude and knowledge and the unstandardized format of individual student’s evaluation. There is no placement test for the participants, inappropriate training facilities, very limited teaching practice, and incapable instructors to train the 2013 curriculum. These factors affect teachers’ understanding the 2013 curriculum as a guide for teaching and learning process that make them unable to implement the curriculum in teaching and learning process.

These weaknesses can actually be overcome through fulfilling the needs of teachers particularly their teaching activities. The limitation understanding of the institution to meet the teachers’ needs, it is important to strengthen the role of STWG to keep its role to help teacher. So, the important thing to do is to strengthen the teachers’ competence by empowering the STWG to run the role to meet the needs of teacher. The argumentation to fulfill the needs of teachers is to be more attention to what teachers themselves need to know, and institutional supports need to be in place in order to meet the complex demands of preparing teachers for the 21ˢᵗ century [7]. They suggest that the innovative teaching and learning strategies are needed to develop student competencies such as deep mastery of challenging content, critical thinking, complex problem solving, effective communication, collaboration, and self-direction.

4.2.3. The Way Out to Solve the Problems of the Teacher in Implementing 2013 Curriculum

To help STWG implement the 2013 curriculum, a teacher should engage and actively participate in STWG activities decided by member of the STWG. A teacher should keep a role as a research and implementors as well as develop teaching innovations. Member of STWG work collaboratively to identify the problems of their schools to be solved and design a plan of instructional learning.

Not only the teachers must have the competencies (pedagogic, social, professional, and social competencies) but the teachers should be given a chance to enhance their professional ability, continuous engagement with evolving pedagogical theories and methods and ways to correlate them with one’s practice in critical and reflective framework, and as their expectation for an in-service teacher education programme and to put their learning in teaching practices and in related context [9]. To strengthen the teachers’ competence, it is needed to equip practicing teachers with modern technological expertise to implement the curriculum and be able to do their teaching professionally [10] with the help of trainers to see and make training experience in school what the teachers’ weaknesses and strengths and what are the areas of practice they need to develop [5].

It is expected that the teacher professional development programme should create a motivation and learning environment. The programmes are supposed to help every participant set and work for his/her own goals of increasing competence, skills, knowledge, and self-confidence. It is also expected that through these programmes, opportunities should be provided to teachers to fulfil the set goals and to visualize the next stage of achievement. The other expectation is that programs will create a dynamic and open system where teachers’ professional development programmes should not be rigid and specific goals instead should be opened for multiple entries, diverse trajectories of growth and a multiplicity of self-assessment. However, these expectation are unable to achieve if the real teaching practice of the training teachers are not observed and monitored during the actual teaching in the class (Spear and da Costa: 2017). They also claim that in-service teacher training and classroom interventions cannot succeed if the participant teachers are not heard and empowered through the process.

5. Conclusion and Recommendation

5.1. Conclusion

Having discussed the findings, it can concluded that the teachers’ knowledge and skill about 2013 curriculum are mostly affected by the level of their educational background, their pre service training from different quality of their universities as well as little professional guidance by external facilitators, principals, and supervisors, and little mentoring by experienced teachers. Teachers also feel burden to understand their students’ achievement to describe students’ learning achievement of authentic assessment of attitude and knowledge as well as the unstandardized format of individual student’s evaluation. These problems can be solved by actively mentored through continuously monitoring and involvement of trainers to visit the class to understand the weaknesses and strengths of the teachers in teaching and learning process.

The important thing to do is to strengthen the teachers’ competence by empowering the STWG to meet the needs of teacher while in the same time a teacher should also engage and actively participate in STWG activities decided by member of the STWG. To help STWG members strengthen the teachers’ competence in implementing the 2013 curriculum, it is needed to equip practicing teachers with modern technological expertise.

5.2. Recommendation

To understand comprehensively the concept and the implementation of the 2013 curriculum, it is suggested that the STWG should be given a free fully authority to manage its own organization without intervention from the district and provincial office. The educational district office may set up a regulation to encourage teachers and school principals to participate actively in STWG. The district educational office collaboratively work with assembly at provincial/regional to allocate the budget for STWG activities. Teachers as member of STWG are suggested to contribute finance by deciding the amount of budget for STWG activities. The program of STWG particularly the implementation of the 2013 curriculum in each school should be based on teaching and learning as well as evaluation of subject study.

The program of STWG should be more related to the professional development programmes that create a motivation and learning environment. The programmes are supposed to help every participant set and work for his/her own goals of increasing competence, skills, knowledge, and self-confidence. However, teachers’ professional development programmes should not be rigid but should be closely related to empirical situation and context of each teacher. Teachers should be given a chance to enhance their professional ability, continuous engagement with evolving pedagogical theories and methods and ways to correlate them with one’s practice in critical and reflective framework, and as their expectation for an in-service teacher education programme and to put their learning in teaching practices and in related context. Viewing from the current method and technique of training for professional development, it is suggested that there is a need to allocate a sufficient time for training to in depth discussion about the curriculum material in the sense of the content of each subject study.

It is also deeded to encourage the teachers to be a profession with professional knowledge and understanding, and professional skills (Hammond, Darling, Hyler, Gardner 2017). Professional development needs to emphasize practices that will help teachers be able train students into critical thinkers and problem solvers.

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to Office of Educational Research and Development for funding the study, the District Educational Office Bima, West Nusa Tenggara province, and the District Educational Office Kulon Progo, Yogyakarta for the recommendation to allow the schools in the area to participate in this study. The deeply thankful is also address to JSS STWG members who have participated and shared the experiences of the teaching and learning process of the 2013 curriculum implementation.

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