Indonesia

In Indonesia, as elsewhere in Asia, education will inevitably play a key role in the national development experience as the 21st century unfolds. Not much international attention is paid to how the education sector is faring in Indonesia, but that is not because nothing is happening. The past decade has seen major changes in the structure of the education system and in the schooling trajectories of Indonesian children and adolescents. The administration of primary and secondary education has been decentralized to the regions. A new paradigm of school-based management has been introduced. Public spending on education has finally reached one-fifth of total government spending, as required by law. But although enrolment rates at all levels continue to increase, the quality of education remains low and has not improved, and the tertiary sector continues to experience problems of autonomy and unsatisfactory performance. This book delves into the major developments in education in Indonesia. Drawing on the expertise of some of the most knowledgeable people in the field, it identifies the challenges facing the sector and offers recommendations on how these challenges could be overcome.

In Indonesia, as elsewhere in Asia, education will inevitably play a key role in the national development experience as the 21st century unfolds. Not much international attention is paid to how the education sector is faring in Indonesia, but that is not because nothing is happening. The past decade has seen major changes in the structure of the education system and in the schooling trajectories of Indonesian children and adolescents. The administration of primary and secondary education has been decentralized to the regions. A new paradigm of school-based management has been introduced. Public spending on education has finally reached one-fifth of total government spending, as required by law. But although enrolment rates at all levels continue to increase, the quality of education remains low and has not improved, and the tertiary sector continues to experience problems of autonomy and unsatisfactory performance. This book delves into the major developments in education in Indonesia. Drawing on the expertise of some of the most knowledgeable people in the field, it identifies the challenges facing the sector and offers recommendations on how these challenges could be overcome.

Learning Indonesian and engaging in Indonesian conversation is made easier, more accessible, and more enjoyable in this new Indonesian phrase book. This book presents practical Bahasa language of everyday interactions by incorporating fundamental sentences used when meeting people, starting conversations, and asking and replying to questions in Indonesian, as well as a basic grammar and pronunciation guide.

This Indonesian collection whets your appetite with recipes from basic dips and sauces to hearty meals and satisfying desserts. Try your hand at serving up Chicken with Tomato Sambal, Creamy Duck Curry and Grilled Fish in Banana Leaf. Other satisfying choices include the aromatic Spiced Chicken Stew with Potatoes and Beef Braised in Coconut Milk.

In these seven papers senior scholars of Indonesian Islam consider ongoing and post-1998 trends in the country's Islamic thought and practice which continues to be of a variegated pattern. Among the subjects addressed are: the "Conservative Turn" of the early 21st century; an overview of the country's Muslim associations, movements and organizations; the Majlis Ulama and Orthodoxy; Reformist Islam and discourse; Shariah in South Sulawesi; Radical Islam in Solo; and finally an exploration of Liberal Progressive Muslim thought and its survival. With glossary, references and index.

Surabaya, 1945-2010 presents the recent history of one of Indonesia's great port cities as viewed from a crowded low-income neighbourhood (kampung) called Dinoyo. By following the lives of Dinoyo residents over three generations, it provides a new perspective on landmark moments in the country's modern history, including the war for independence, the destruction of the Communist Party, the petrus anti-crime campaign, neighbourhood improvement projects, the fall of the New Order and the rise of democracy, as well as more recent government campaigns to fight terrorism and promote urban renewal.) During several long periods of residence in the kampung, Robbie Peters gathered richly detailed information about the responses of its residents to the tumultuous process of political reform and economic growth. He shows how their informal economy adapted to the forces of urban change, and how their neighbourhood-based social institutions promoted a 'participative' citizenship that resisted state attempts to shape a more exclusive citizenship that restricted the rights of newcomers to the city. Residents of urban neighbourhoods such as Kampung Dinoyo make up a substantial proportion of Indonesia's urban population and their kampungs a significant proportion of urban land, yet they rarely appear in historical accounts of the Indonesian city. Peters' account of urban life as experienced by one group of kampung residents is a unique contribution to the literature on one of Asia's largest and most complex countries.

The years 1945-48 marked the peak of the Indonesian revolution, but they were also formative years for state-labour relationship in modern Indonesia. Drawing on a wide range of historical sources, Jafar Suryomenggolo reconstructs labour's initial drive to form and orient unions during this critical period. The historical narrative captures early unions' nationalist spirit and efforts to defend members' socio-economic interests, and shows the steps taken by the labour movement to maintain its independence and build institutional capacity within the new Indonesian state. Organising under the Revolution challenges the prevailing assumptions that see labour movements as political arms of the post-colonial state. The author's conclusions provide a comparative lens for the study of labour movements in Southeast Asia, and developing countries in general.

Amba is a modern take on the story of Amba and Bhisma from the Mahabharata, set against the backdrop of the bloody events of 1965 and the Buru penal colony. In Bahasa Indonesia.

An audio CD is included with these progressive lessons in standard, daily-use, Indonesian for the beginner. Guidance on lifestyle and local expectations included in each lesson along with word lists and phrases and sentences which a newcomer will need. The appendix deals with some basic grammar. With lively illustrations and dictionary.

The Saga of Siti Mariah is a window into the workings of the Cultuurstelsel or "Forced Cultivation" system imposed in the Dutch East Indies from 1830 until 1870. In this book's pages, the lives of Dutch sugar barons, indigenous elite, European officials, and Chinese middlemen who were enriched under the system intersect with those of Javanese peasants who suffered under its yoke and the Javanese women who were bedded by the Dutch masters and administrators, fit only to be concubines, never wives. Published in serial form in Malay lingua franca between 1910 and 1912, the work forms part of sastra pra-Indonesia, or pre-Indonesian literature-literature written in Malay before the nationalist term "Indonesian" began to be applied to the Malay language texts then being produced in the archipelago.

The Rose of Cikembang was part of an already remarkable body of modern mass literature, now largely forgotten, which had been created over the previous thirty or so years mainly by Indonesians of Chinese descent in a language that had long been known as Low Malay, or simply Malay. The Rose of Cikembang was inspired by William Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream". Kwee adapted the story to reflect Indonesian circumstances, but also used the book to open discussion on the issue of the Nyai, a concubine often kept by young unmarried men. The novel has been adapted for a play and even for a screenplay.

Java in the period covered by Kayam's fictional saga was a rural society somewhat relieved by mostly minor urban centers. It was a time of population increase and of diminishing holdings, when the immemorial difficulties of the peasantry were growing more acute than usual. Nevertheless, modern ways and ideas were seeping into the countryside, offering prospects of upward social mobility and a more secure life. The key was education: the one bright portal of hope for the wretched of Java. A central focus of the novel Para Priyayi, translated here as Javanese Gentry, is the indispensability of literacy to any peasant villager seeking to escape the miseries of his class and achieve familial betterment by rising into the higher of the colonial Java's essentially two-tier society. That higher, literate tier was the priyayi, a functionary-gentry shading in its upper levels into the traditional aristocracy and acting in most facets of life as an intermediary and cultural filter between the peasantry and the Dutch.

Ikal is a student at Muhammadiyah Elementary, on the Indonesian island of Belitong, where graduating from sixth grade is considered a major achievement. His school is under constant threat of closure. In fact, Ikal and his friends - a group called The Rainbow Troops - face threats from every angle: pessimistic, corrupt government officials; greedy corporations hardly distinguishable from the colonialism they've replaced; deepening poverty and crumbling infrastructure; and their own faltering self-confidence. But in the form of two extraordinary teachers, they also have hope, and Ikal's education is an uplifting one, in and out of the classroom. This is classic story-telling: an engrossing depiction of a world not often encountered, bursting with charm and verve.

This richly illustrated presentation of traditional Indonesian woven textiles shows how these can become appropriate and beautiful contributors to contemporary homes and living spaces of many kinds. With glossary, sourcing directory, bibliography and index.

Batam's destiny has been shaped by its strategic location. Whose hinterland is it? This book takes a bold look at how political influences, both internal and external, have affected Batam's development. It challenges the view that economic development can be kept separate from the national political and bureaucratic forces that underpin its institutional basis.

Bacharuddin Jusof Habibie, President of Indonesia 1998-1999 has written this very personal account of his life with his late wife Dr Hj Hasri Ainun (1937-2010) as a tribute to her and celebration of their life together. He discusses his training and professional career as an engineer in Germany and her training and life as a medical doctor as well as their return to Indonesia in public life. Details are given of Dr Ainun's 1997 medical diagnosis and their subsequent efforts to maintain a normal life together despite many changes and demands. Habibie's grief and religious faith and his love for his wife dominates much of the account of the post-1999 period which ended with her May 2010 death in Germany and subsequent burial in Jakarta. Any author's profits will go to service organisations.

Musical Worlds in Yogyakarta is an ethnographic account of a vibrant Indonesian city during the turbulent early post-Soeharto years. It examines musical performance in public contexts ranging from the street and neighbourhood through to commercial venues and state environments such as Yogyakarta's regional parliament, its military institutions, universities and the Sultans palace. It focuses on the musical tastes and practices of street workers, artists, students and others. From street-corner jam sessions to large-scale concerts, a range of genres emerge that cohere around notions of campursari (mixed essences) and jalanan (of the street). Musical worlds addresses themes of social identity and power, counterpoising Pierre Bourdieu's theories on class, gender and nation with the authors alternative perspectives of inter-group social capital, physicality and grounded cosmopolitanism. The author argues that Yogyakarta is exemplary of how everyday people make use of music to negotiate issues of power and at the same time promote peace and intergroup appreciation in culturally diverse inner-city settings.

A fast-paced, intensely emotional drama of Indonesian life high and low, set against the tumultuous backdrop of thereformasi era, after the fall of Suharto in 1999. This is the story of Sito, a brilliantly gifted artist who leaves his home in a poor village in Central Java while still in his teens, to make his name and his fortune in the royal city of Jogjakarta. Vatikiotis tells a suspenseful tale that weaves together a fascinating inside view of the art boom in Indonesia and the nation's religious and political ferment in the twenty-first century, haunted by ghosts of the nation's bloody past.

In 1991, the Indonesian military opened fire on East Timorese protestors in Dili. In Jakarta a cover-up began immediately. The Indonesian mass media was cautioned to tow the official line. Seno Gumira Ajidarma, editor of Jakarta Jakarta at the time, refused to do so and was released from his position. Unable to let his fellow Indonesians know about the facts of this "incident," Seno transformed documentary evidence into semi-fictional form and published it as novel. This novel is a triptych made up of three series of panels.

A trilogy of novels set in tumultuous days of the mid 1960s, The Dancer describes a village community struggling to adapt to a rapidly changing world. It also provides readers with a ground-level view of the political turmoil leading up to and following the abortive Communist coup.