Okan Celiker has spent many years as a school administrator. Currently the Management Advisor of Kharisma Bangsa school, he spoke to NOW! Jakarta about the students’ achievements and his plans for building on their successes.
Please tell us about the curriculum here
This is our second year implementing the Cambridge curriculum. We offer both the National and Cambridge curricula. Currently, Civics and Religious Studies are offered through the National curriculum. Our teachers have been trained to teach the Cambridge track. We have both international and local. Around 20 per cent of our faculty are international. Teacher development is a big emphasis, we have classroom observation and provide feedback. We constantly try implement various initiatives.
These days, technology plays a vital role in education. What are some of the technology focused initiatives here?
One of the ideas I wanted to bring here from my experience as an administrator in the U.S school system is replacing the iPad with Chromebooks and the use of Google Classroom. Parents have complained that children are distracted by the iPad at home, so from next year we plan to use just the Chromebooks.
What’s your philosophy of education?
I believe in increasing global awareness. I’d like to increase the diversity of the school and encourage our students to go abroad for college. We have a college counselling programme which works hard on helping students explore opportunities overseas. This department helps and they’re working on hard to get students overseas. At the moment, 8 per cent of our students go to college abroad but we hope to increase it to 20 per cent.
What do you look for when considering a student for admission?
Our students are unique because of their scholastic abilities. During the summer they participate in Genius Olympiads. At the recent competition, judges were impressed as our students are successful in multiple fields, academic as well as non-academic, Math and Science but also Arts and Sports. One student won a gold medal in Chemistry but she also got a medal for poster design so that’s a combination we look for. We also encourage students to participate in extra curricular activities such as dance, arts, photography or in sports clubs.
What are some of the career trajectories of some of your recent graduates?
Most of our graduates have gone into engineering and medicine. We hope to bring in an equal focus on the social sciences for the next academic year.
- 700 Students, 300 reside in dorms.
- Second Languages offered: Indonesian, Japanese, Turkish, Arabic
- SAT is mandatory for 12th grade students
- Strong Olympiad prep programme
- (75 per cent of the national team includes students from this school)
