Education in the Netherlands East-Indies
Introduction
| In the nineteenth century European education had hardly any similarities with native schooling in the Netherlands East-Indies. The native schools were mostly institutions with a religious, Islamitic, curriculum. In the twentieth century the Dutch colonial government tried to realize a
breadth-wise education. For that reason the governor-general Van Heutsz and his staff introduced elementary instruction by way of so-called “Desa-schools” in 1906. The advantages were numerous: the education was simple, cheap and adapted to local circumstances (see survey a and b about Desa-schools and link-schools). The colonial government foresaw a great demand for native middleclass workers in the public and private service (see superstructures in survey c). Therefore in 1920 a network of education was created from Desa-school up to university. |
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| P 1. The Department of Education and Worship, 1930 Jl Cilacap, Jakarta / Batavia, Weltevreden. From: Dept. of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce, Handbook of the Netherlands East-Indies; Bogor / Buitenzorg Java 1930, p. 72 |
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The first university education (technological) was established in Bandung / Bandoeng in 1918, followed by other faculties in Jakarta / Batavia. In 1940 more than forty percent of the children (6-12 years old) attended schooltraining. The efforts of the colonial government to combat illiteracy were a success. (Source: J. van Goor, De Nederlandse koloniën; The Hague 1978, p.275) One of the results of the efforts to fill up a gap between stimulation of education and eagerness to read has been the creation of mutual libraries: Balai Pusaka, Volksliteratuur. The aim of the article is to show an impression of the serious efforts of the Dutch colonial government in the first half of the twentieth century to introduce a system of education for everybody. This article is based on the legislation from 1893, 1906 and 1915 and describes the colonial educational organization in 1935. The attention from the colonial Government authorities (Government for short or, in Dutch,
“Gouvernement”) for the sake of education during the nineteenth century is outside the scope of this article! |
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| Contents
of this article:
1. Native primary and vocational education, Western primary education 2. Western
secondary education, Western universities and colleges |
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