Implementing Open Source Platform for Education Quality Enhancement in Primary Education: Indonesia Experience.

Information and Communication Technology (ICT)-supported learning using free and open source platform draws little attention as open source initiatives were focused in secondary or tertiary educations. This study investigates possibilities of ICT-supported learning using open source platform for primary educations. The data of this study is taken from a 3-years ICT-supported education quality enhancement project involving 300 elementary schools and 200 junior high schools in the Special Province of Yogyakarta, Indonesia. In this research, 50 elementary and 50 junior high schools are used as samples for pilot observation. Technology Acceptance Model and Structural Equation Model are employed to analyze the findings. It is concluded that open source platform is accepted even in a low e-readiness environment such as in primary educations. Further, this research also develops strategies to successfully implement open source platform for ICT-supported learning in primary educations. However real e-learning outcome is not yet measured as this study is performed before the national exam of the participating students performed. INTRODUCTION Information and communication technology (ICT) is expected to produce positive effects in education not only because ICT can improve communications among relevant education stakeholders, such as students, school managers, teachers, and government staff responsible of education, but it can also increase motivation to study. It is believed that ICT will contribute in supporting teaching and learning process, enhance school governance by improving accessibility to useful Web sites, enhancing ICT skills, and improving interactions among schools and teachers. ICT is also often perceived as a catalyst for change; change in teaching style, change in learning approaches and change to access to education information (Hoskins & van Hooff, 2005), (Lee, Tseng, et al, 2007). Funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the Ministry of Communication and Information of the Republic of Indonesia together with the Government of Special Province Yogyakarta has initiated an information and communication technology utilization program for educational quality enhancement in Yogyakarta Province. The project involved selected 300 elementary schools and 200 junior high schools in the Special Province of Yogyakarta, Indonesia. This project is used as a model of ICT-based education quality enhancement implementation in Indonesia and expected to be replicated to other provinces in order to level up the quality of education. The expected outcome of the project is to enhance the quality of primary educations in Yogyakarta Province especially in mathematics and science. The outcome will be observed through increase in the average score in National Exams, increase in Mathematics and Science Olympiad participation, increase in teachers’ ICT competence in general ICT skills as well as in the utilization of ICT for teaching-learning process. The study is important for three reasons. First, this is the first large scale ICT-supported learning project implemented in primary educations in Indonesia. Most of e-learning implementation project in developing countries focus on higher level educations such as secondary schools (Year 10 to Year 12) or even tertiary education or university level (Anonymous, 2008). The result of this study can be used further to formulate better strategy in implementing e-learning in primary educations in other provinces or countries. Secondly, the project is implemented using open source platform. OpenSUSE, a Linux distribution was chosen by the project to minimize project cost as well as an initiative to introduce open source at early age students. Even though National Education ICT Curriculum is based on Microsoft platform, the decision of using open source in developing countries struggling with copyright problems like Indonesia is deliberately taken as free and open source platform has many beneficial advantages (Orman, 2007). The third reason is that Yogyakarta Province, a relatively small and rural province, was chosen as the pilot province for the project. The project can be seen as a TOJET: The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology – July 2016, volume 15 issue 3