17 Feb 2017
Cambridge Assessment International Education has entered into a partnership with Putera Sampoerna Foundation to deliver professional development for teachers in Indonesia. Since 2003, Putera Sampoerna Foundation has promoted a better quality of education for Indonesia through its Sampoerna Schools System and School Development Outreach. The partnership will give teachers in Indonesia an opportunity to improve their competence in the field of English-medium international education in order to benefit from the increasing demand for international education.
Cambridge and Sampoerna will develop the competence of Indonesian teachers to teach an international curriculum in English. Two hundred schools in Indonesia offer international education programmes with Cambridge, often in a bilingual setting in combination with the Indonesian national curriculum.
Indonesian teachers will also have the opportunity to become accredited as Cambridge teacher trainers themselves, which will enable them to train other teachers professionally at schools in the region that adopt the Cambridge curriculum. This marks the first time that Cambridge Assessment International Education is working with a third party in Indonesia to identify and recruit local professional trainers.
Each year, Cambridge Assessment International Education sends accredited Cambridge trainers from the United Kingdom to Indonesia to spearhead over 30 teacher training events in Cambridge IGCSE and Cambridge International AS & A Level subjects. Serving a growing need for high quality schools and teachers, the partnership between Putera Sampoerna Foundation and Cambridge Assessment International Education will build local capacity for the delivery of professional development in education. As more Indonesian teachers become accredited to deliver Cambridge training for their colleagues, the capacity to deliver English-medium international education will increase in line with growing demand.
Over time, Indonesian accredited Cambridge trainers will lead all teacher training events as well as other planned professional development initiatives for Cambridge schools in Indonesia, such as forums, workshops, conferences and professional communities of practice.
The Memorandum of Understanding between Cambridge Assessment International Education and Putera Sampoerna Foundation was signed on Friday 17 February 2017 at the Sampoerna University campus on L’Avenue, Jakarta. Cambridge Assessment International Education also proudly announced its 200th Cambridge school in Indonesia – Sampoerna Academy, L’Avenue campus, which will be offering Cambridge IGCSE and Cambridge International AS & A Levels to its learners in the new semester.
Ben Schmidt, Regional Director, Southeast Asia & Pacific, Cambridge Assessment International Education, said: 'As the cohort of Indonesian Cambridge learners grows each year, we felt it became essential to develop local teacher training capacity and expand our offering of professional development courses for Cambridge teachers and schools across Indonesia. This partnership with Putera Sampoerna Foundation comes at an opportune time when we have just celebrated the opening of our 200th Cambridge school in Indonesia in Sampoerna Academy. We are also presenting 134 Outstanding Cambridge Learner Awards to top-performing Indonesia learners for the June and November 2016 Cambridge examination series, more so than in previous years. We are more committed than ever to developing high-quality teaching and learning support for Indonesian teachers at Cambridge schools. Their professional development will be a key focus for us in the long term.
'This provides an excellent opportunity for teachers in Indonesia to benefit from the growing demand for English-medium international education in Indonesia and abroad. Some of them will even become accredited Cambridge trainers themselves and learn from the best teacher training and assessment practices in the world.'
Gusman Yahya, Head of Putera Sampoerna Foundation–School Development Outreach (PSF SDO) said: 'As part of our commitment to improve the quality of educators, PSF SDO actively engages with highly reputable international education institutions to continuously produce quality graduates who are able to compete in global market and prepare them to be work ready and world ready by providing comprehensive educational experience. The partnership with Cambridge would create bigger opportunities, in terms of access and affordability, for schools and educators to have high-quality professional development.' Cambridge Assessment International Education and Putera Sampoerna Foundation will co-organise a series of teacher training events for Cambridge schools in Indonesia in April 2017, which will be initially delivered by accredited Cambridge trainers from the United Kingdom. Identification and recruitment of qualified Indonesian trainers for accreditation by Cambridge will be undertaken concurrently, with the aim of having most teacher training events in Indonesia led by accredited local Cambridge trainers by 2019.