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What impressed me about my friends was their determination for their children to have, what they described as, "the best possible education that will give them good prospects for their future careers". What seemed sad and disappointing was that they had concluded that this "best possible education" could not be accommodated and provided by the Indonesian schooling system.
It is quite amazing how many international schools are available in Jakarta now. With recent terrorist attacks and threats on Jakarta, many in the expatriate community have in fact been leaving Indonesia and yet there are still many international schools that, one would have assumed, are designated and targeted more exclusively to serve the expatriate community.
But times have changed and international schools are no longer there to exclusively serve the international community. More and more Indonesians are choosing international schools for their children's education. But, of course, these are the relative few in Indonesia today because after all international schools do not come cheap.
However, no matter what school a parent chooses to send his or her children to, care needs to be taken to assess the type and quality of education that is being offered. When it comes to international schools this is probably doubly important because there is a great expense that can be incurred to parents who are choosing an "international" education for their child.
But we should take care when we think or hear of that "international" label. Many parents quickly and easily enter into the belief that the label "international" is an instant ticket to quality education and better and international education in the future at the ages of college life. But this is not always the case.
There are many "international" institutes and educators highly capable as providers of what might be considered a superior education. But at the same time there are those institutes that do not necessarily live up to such standards and they offer an educational "service" that is neither worthy of the nametag "international" or the accompanying higher, if not extortionate, school fees.
My friend ultimately settled on an international school with a more fully developed campus site and a depth of curriculum and teaching staff that impressed them. Of course, this was an even more expensive proposition for them but they are fortunate to be able to afford the extra expense and of course look to it as a way of setting their minds at ease that they have made the right choice.
This, though, is the key conundrum for any and all parents. What is really the right choice of school for our children? In some quarters, mainly in the worlds of sales and commerce, the phrase "reassuringly expensive" is used to express the idea that the more you pay, the more likely you are to get something good.
Sometimes parents have the attitude that the school knows best and so they practically handover their child and the child's education to the school and the school system. This is not right though because so much of a child's education is naturally, or really should be, evolving from the home. Parents that just handover the educational responsibility to the school are really failing.
But also they may be failing and blinding themselves to the reality of what is really happening in school. International schools offer an option for education for the more financially secure of Jakarta. But the "international" labelling of a school should not blind the parents and reduce their analysis of what they are paying for. For the greater part better quality education should be at hand but only scrutiny and continuous checking will guarantee this.
People have obviously been very frustrated with the state of education in Jakarta and beyond and so this has led to a greater consideration of an international setting for children's education. But that setting should not be accepted on face value alone; the customer must check and the buyer must beware.
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