The Faculty of Education, Undiksha sent its female students to study in the land of rice barns. The lucky student was Ni Putu Sinta Dewi. Sinta is a student in the Early Childhood Education Teacher Education Study Program. To be precise, on January 14, 2019, she was flown to the Philippines to hone his teaching skills, which was also a requirement for the PPL course she was taking. Having received this opportunity, Sinta told how she initially got this valuable opportunity, starting from trial and error and being a little pessimistic because she felt that she was not fluent in English. Added to this is the tight competition held by Undiksha and most of the participants are English students. However, it was because of his courage to try that he was finally selected to take part in this overseas PPL program.
She gained a lot of experience in the country he nicknamed England in miniature. At that time she had the opportunity to teach mathematics in grade 3 elementary school, at Cavite State University, Child Development Center. Even though it didn’t match the study program she was taking, Sinta didn’t find it difficult because she had studied mathematics as a subject on campus, only the level of difficulty was different. There were also native teachers and students there who accompanied Sinta in making lesson plans and teaching the students. Adaptation was a difficulty he faced, he was given adaptation for 1 week. Apart from that, she also had difficulty communicating with the children, “because they are only in grade 3, they are not yet fluent in English. Many things must be adapted, starting from the use of language, the habit of waking up early, respecting time, and hard work.
The interesting thing she discovered was, “So the interesting thing is that I saw that the people there eat a lot, maybe because they work long hours, so they need a lot of nutritional intake too. The environment is also clean, I didn’t find a single piece of plastic waste, there are lots of warnings about fines that apply to people if they throw rubbish carelessly, they don’t just have to classify the rubbish according to the type of rubbish. “People there are used to waking up at half past 5 in the morning, at 6 o’clock they have left and at 7 o’clock they are at school, so before school starts lessons at 8 o’clock, they study early at school,” said Sinta.
When she looked at the education system there, he said the priority subjects were Mathematics and English. The different thing she saw compared to Indonesia was the large number of books brought to school, “children who go to school bring so many books that they use suitcases to carry them.” If we look at the strengths of the children, according to her, this is quite burdensome for the children, but the positive thing is that there is a lot of literature that children can read. The education system there is more practical, with little explanation but lots of practice questions. The curriculum there is changed every 30 years, which when changed must be based on research. When compared with Indonesia, Sinta assesses that all education systems are good depending on the goals to be achieved, the readiness of human resources, and culture. And when it is to be replaced, it is better to balance it with research results. Because if it is changed frequently, teachers will be required to adapt frequently too, “the character of human resources can be formed from education. If education is changed, what will happen to the character of human resources later,” said this 8th-semester student
Not only was she studying, Sinta and other Undiksha students also had the opportunity to travel to the Philippines, “because the majority of Christians there were so we had the opportunity to visit churches, which are many in the Philippines,” said this student from Gianyar. After 29 days in the Philippines, Sinta and her friends returned to Indonesia on February 19, 2019. She continued the remainder of her study period like the normal days she spent before going to the Philippines. There is something different, namely the priority of honest character, discipline, and responsibility. Because according to him, many dishonest people will fail. He will convey this character to his students when he becomes a teacher.
