Agents of Change

Sampoerna Academy

Apr 02, 2021

Interview by Dr Stephen M. Whitehead

If you are a regular reader of EDDi then no doubt you’ll have noticed a new contributor to our digests over the past month or two – Sampoerna Academy.

However, unless you happen to be an educationalist in Indonesia, where Sampoerna Academy is based, then very likely this extensive and progressive international educational operation will be unfamiliar to you.

Well, it need not be unfamiliar any longer because EDDi recently recorded a long interview with some key members of Sampoerna Academy and this article is the result.

It makes for fascinating reading.

As you’ll see from their website, Sampoerna Academy is an impressive operation, offering an educational experience covering pre-school to high school and Sampoerna University.

With international schools located in Jakarta, BSD, Sentul, Surabaya and Medan, plus a world-class university in L’Avenue, Jakarta, Sampoerna Academy has established itself as not only an educational pioneer in Indonesia, but a model for any South East Asian international school operation seeking to expand while achieving that precious blend of localised cultural appreciation and global intercultural citizenship.

Achieving such a blend is not easy, but it is helped by having the right curricula, and for that Sampoerna Academy draws on the best available - IEYC, Cambridge and the International Baccalaureate. No surprise then, that Sampoerna Academy graduates get accepted at some of the top world universities.

But achieving educational excellence is not only about world-class curricula and world-class facilities. You need that magical element, the ‘secret sauce’ which turns the good into the exceptional.

The Magic of People

And such magic can only come from people. Enter then, Frida Dwiyanti, Principal of Sampoerna Academy Sentul.; a more bubbly, positive and effervescent character you could not hope to meet.

“Yes, I am always happy! I love my job and I love education.”

In between Frida laughing and smiling during the zoom interview, she provided me with lots of information about Sampoerna Academy and her own role within the organisation.

“I’ve done a lot of development work with IB, including trips to the Netherlands and participating workshops in South East Asia, including one in your home city of Chiang Mai in 2015 I’m also invited by the Indonesian government to discuss and help advise on national curriculum changes and development.”
“I also get invited by Indonesian schools to lead workshops on curriculum development and give motivational talks to teachers so they are better prepared to introduce new ways of learning.”

It wasn’t difficult for me to imagine Frida giving such a motivational talk, her whole presentation of self, even on zoom, expresses enthusiasm and encouragement. And as we know, if you want to get professionals, especially teachers, to take up new ways of working, then leading and guiding them in a positive way works best.

“Of course, I am not the only one doing this work in Sampoerna Academy, there is a team of us and we are all working together to ensure we move our teaching and learning forward across all the schools.”

So how does Sampoerna Academy manage to blend the local/national with the international?

“We find the blend of IEYC, Cambridge and IB works really well for our schools, but we don’t neglect our local curriculum – so whatever subject we are teaching we ensure we contextualise the curriculum into both national (Indonesian) and international contexts.”

Sampoerna Academy is clearly a progressive operation and it is a large one. At this point in the interview Ria Sutrisno, Head of Marketing, joined us. Ria was able to answer the question as to the total number of students across their schools.

“We have nearly 1900 students and a few hundred teachers. And in addition to our five schools our Sampoerna University has around 600 students.
“The advantage which Sampoerna Academy offers students is that they can join us at kindergarten level and progress through our education system concluding with a university degree. Our HE specialisms are business, engineering and education, including teacher training.
Some of our students go to Sampoerna University while others go on to study abroad. We have an especially close partnership with Arizona University and students who undertake our University of Arizona validated degrees are awarded two degrees, one from Sampoerna and one from Arizona and they can achieve this without leaving Indonesia.”
Around 6 out of 10 of our Sampoerna University lecturers hold a doctoral degree, which is about five times more than the national average in Indonesia.”

Although the majority of Sampoerna Academy students are local, a sizeable percentage come from other Asian countries and from the West. As Frida put it:

“we are very much an international community. Our mission is to provide a safe, enjoyable learning community so our students feel empowered so when they leave us they are ready for life and the world, not only ready for work.”

The ‘happiness’ element is certainly demonstrated in Frida’s manner – indeed her joyful outlook is quite infectious and no doubt permeates through her school.

Over recent years there has been unprecedented growth in exclusive, and expensive, international schools, mostly catering for the top few percent of the population who can afford them. But future international school growth will not come from this top tier, it will come from a much larger social group, the middle, middle classes. And this is where Sampoerna Academy focuses its attention. As Ria put it:

“We at Sampoerna Academy aim to produce high calibre future leaders for the nation by having different international pathways, an integrated school system, and high-level learning but we also want to provide an education which is affordable for a large number of parents.”

The international character of Sampoerna Academy is underlined by the diversity of their teachers, as Frida explained:

“We have teachers from all over the world working in our schools, not just Indonesia but from across South East Asia and from the West., so many backgrounds.”

One area of teaching and learning that Sampoerna Academy prides itself on is STEAM, which Sampoerna Academy defines as:

“The application of science, technology, engineering and math through art and design. This approach aims to strengthen the foundation of STEAM by helping students enhance their critical thinking skills and recognise the intersection of art, science, technology, engineering and math. This develops greater understanding innovation and a cohesive education in the classroom.”
“We are the pioneer of STEAM, the first school to implement this approach into our teaching and learning. So as an example, we are now preparing our students for Chinese New Year, so we are using this as an opportunity in teaching Mandarin while also linking to culture, belief, technology, science and critical thinking. We are making Chinese lanterns, for instance, and students are asked to think beyond simply creating the lantern but also critically think about the culture, the science, the technology and the engineering which informs this activity.”
“Last month we had a STEAM Expo, where we combined all our students’ work under one roof, and gave a public presentation of the progress and application our students achievement.

I liked the sound of this, especially the way in which Sampoerna Academy strives to combine a number of different learning objectives into not just the development of STEAM knowledge and intelligence, but also cultural awareness, critical thinking, creativity and diversity adaptation. All presented through and taught via the inherent student centeredness of the IEYC, Cambridge and IB curricula.

No doubt the students’ love it – and the teachers.

It certainly has to be an improvement on the traditional didactic, and now completely outdated, Asian teaching which relies heavily on blackboards and chalk.

The fact that Sampoerna Academy is pushing this student-centred, enquiry-based learning approach and is also a university providing graduates with the opportunity to acquire Qualified Teacher Status, means a steady stream of their graduates entering the teaching profession, especially across S E Asia, equipped with STEAM knowledge and the skills to deliver it.

This led me to ask about Frida’s experience of teaching Indonesian Generation Z students.

We know that around the world, this generation is very different to any of the past. They are much more adept at technology and are learning more from their devices than they possibly are in the classroom and certainly from their families.

“Yes, I agree, they are so different. And I can say that not just as a teacher but also as a mother of one Generation Z child. The teaching needs to be different. When I was at school all the knowledge came from the teacher. The teacher assumes to know everything. The student cannot ask any questions. Like all S E Asian countries, Indonesia has a social hierarchy and teachers are seen at the top, if you are asking critical questions of a teacher you are seen as confronting the teacher. You are not showing respect to the teacher. That cannot be the case today. Today the teacher is a facilitator for the acquisition of knowledge by the student. This suits Generation Z psychology much better. The students are given a chance to show their critical thinking.”

As with schooling everywhere, the key to success lies with the teacher. But today a teacher is much less a teacher and more a facilitator, guide, mentor, coach. I put it to Frida that recruiting educational professionals with this level of ability is not always easy, especially in South East Asia.

“At Sampoerna Academy we need our teachers to be skilled, qualified and open-minded, regardless of their background. Our new teachers have also to be learners, learning the Sampoerna Academy system and culture.”

In order to meet the need of Generation Z, the students currently in Sampoerna Academy, Frida and her management colleagues recognise the importance of student centred learning, differentiation, and continuous professional development for all their staff.

But more than that, Sampoerna Academy, like many international schools nowadays, recognises the importance of educating the parents. It is not just the teachers and students who need to accept and understand the Sampoerna Academy mission and systems, parents need to understand and accept it also.

“To achieve that objective, we run a lot of professional development programmes and information sessions which parents can attend. So we recognise that we are also ‘educating parents’. We run webinars for parents, information sessions through Instagram, we even include sessions for parents on how to operate google meet. All this is happening while we have the covid pandemic impacting on our school life, so it is vital to bring our parents into the learning and development.”

Ria emphasised the same point about ensuring parents are part of the story, part of the school community, especially during these uncertain times.

“These challenging times require us to work together with the parents as well as with our teachers and students, to continue the learning journey and experience for them. We’ve done a lot of work helping students and careers get to grips with the technological aspects of online learning. We are providing more regular updates to parents than we even did before the pandemic, to share information, get feedback, ensure our students are okay. Nobody is going through all this feeling perfectly fine. Naturally there is anxiety especially for the parents. So, we started a regular wellbeing workshop for parents. Not necessarily to discuss teaching issues, but for the parents to share and feedback to us.”

All very impressive. So what is the future for Sampoerna Academy? Where is it heading?

Frida:

“At my school, Sentul, are expanding to grade 10, increasing both our student numbers and our number of teachers.”

Ria:

“For Sampoerna Academy generally, are we looking to grow? The answer is ‘yes’. Are we looking to grow internationally? Well in the foreseeable future our aim is to focus on growth in Indonesia and we’ll open our second Sampoerna Academy in Surabaya by July, ready for the new academic year. Our strategy is to reach out to even more cities in Indonesia. Our vision and mission is to help the development of our country through offering high quality education pathways to as many students as possible.”

Finally, I asked both Ria and Frida what they saw as the biggest challenges facing Indonesia at this point in time, especially in relation to education.

Frida:

“There differences among Indonesians just as there are elsewhere, but with Sampoerna Academy we offer a community educational experience, one which celebrates national and local culture but also an international outlook. So I am very optimistic for Indonesia because I can see how education is changing people’s outlook and bringing in more open-mindedness. Sampoerna Academy is part of that process of change.”

Ria:

“I’m not coming from an educator’s perspective but a more general view. What I see is a growth in the middle-income groups in Indonesia, and I believe Sampoerna Academy has the chance to offer these groups quality education. This is important because our future leaders will come from within these groups. This is still a challenge in many parts of Indonesia but the country is moving forward and Sampoerna Academy is part of that process.”

So, both Frida and Ria are optimistic for Indonesia, and they are optimistic for Sampoerna Academy, which I have to agree, from what I’m seeing and hearing is most definitely in a strong position to capitalise on the inherent growth in Indonesian’s demand for quality international education.

Covid pandemic aside, Sampoerna Academy, like all good organisations, has had to adjust, adapt and is still in a process of change. But then again, the organisation that stands still quickly falters and then eventually dies. There can be no standing still for any organisation, and certainly not for educational institutions such as Sampoerna Academy, which are now offering the growing Indonesian middle classes a route to international awareness, understanding, and prosperity.

Every South East Asian country has its ‘Sampoerna’s’ and that is a credit to both the entrepreneurialism of individual school owners and to the unstinting dedication of educationalists and professionals such as Frida and Ria.

But Sampoerna Academy does stand out – not only because of its size but because of its very clear entrepreneurial strategy combined with 21st century teaching and learning.

My advice to anyone reading this who is unfamiliar with Indonesian education, and Sampoerna Academy, is to keep an eye on what this interesting and dynamic organisation does next.

It already has five schools in different cities.

In which case, Sampoerna Academy is something of a bellwether for the direction of Indonesian education and in many respects, the direction of Indonesian culture, leadership and economics.

I wish it well.

For more information on this fascinating educational institution, visit Sampoerna Academy.

AND, ALSO IN INDONESIA….WHERE’S YOUR COPY?

International Schooling: The Teacher’s Guide is getting around. Seen here by a pool in Bali.

Where’s your copy?

Send us a picture and we’ll feature you in EDDi and on social media.

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