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ACEH SCHOOL PROJECT

"The tsunami has brought us to this place so that we can provide a model for all of Indonesia." —UNSYIAH Rector Abdi A. Wahab, August 2005

The USINDO Aceh School Project is carried out in partnership with:

• University of Syiah Kuala, Banda Aceh
• Department of Schools, City of Banda Aceh
• Department of Schools of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam
• Ministry of National Education, Jakarta
• The Sampoerna Foundation

About the project

USINDO and Syiah Kuala University (UNSYIAH) are collaborating to establish the UNSYIAH Lab School, a co-educational senior high school (SMA grades 10-12) on the UNSYIAH campus in Banda Aceh. The Lab School will be a model community school, educating students primarily from the severely earthquake- and tsunami-damaged area surrounding the university, and a laboratory school, providing university students in UNSYIAH's College of Education and Teaching (FKIP) opportunities for pre-service practice teaching under the supervision of master teachers. Ground was broken in March, 2006 and construction should be completed in February, 2007. The school will open in July, 2007 with three 30-student sections of Class One (10th grade) and will add 90 Class One students per year for two more years to reach a total enrollment of 270 students: 90 in each of three grades. A principal and vice principal have been chosen and expert teachers will be hired in January. Training for the faculty has begun and will intensify over the coming months.

This project

• Assists in rebuilding Aceh’s educational infrastructure, providing a means of developing future generations of teachers and a replicable example, thus implementing improvement in the Province’s school system.
• Meets core educational objectives that were outlined by Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, head of the Aceh reconstruction agency (Badan Rehabilitasi dan Rekonstruksi, or BRR) and his staff, who see USINDO and UNSYIAH as leading the way.
• Offers a highly visible, unique corporate opportunity to have a long-term impact on the reconstruction of Aceh as well as a significant influence on education in Aceh, Sumatra, and Indonesia as a whole.  Support for the Lab School underlines the people-to-people nature of the project, which was fueled by substantial donations from school children in the United States, Indonesia, and other countries, and individual donations matched by corporate grants.

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