Education remains being in the government’s focus from time to time. Different regime, different policies. Indonesian education system has adapted to a number of curriculum shifts, with the latest one, 2013, being canceled for not being competent enough. It’s time for technology to take the spot, and one out of so many would be the big data analysis.
In numerous sectors like marketing, big data allows ads to target the right audience, thanks to the analysis on users’ personal data. In education, such technology would extremely come in handy, particularly to erase the gap.
It’s undeniable that the education in Indonesia is still full of gaps, especially between the system in the big cities and rural areas. This probably be the main reason why the government initiated the national exam as the graduation standard, although lately the policy’s been compromised due to insights from a number of parties.
Personalization is the key word. Every region, school, and even child got his own condition. Thus, it’s a bit unfair to generalize. The earlier case of ads shows that the same effect may also come from the implementation of the analysis in education, as students may personalized the system according to their own condition.
Technology does not only change paper into digital entity. Big data may specifically provide analysis and insight from the data, which in turn will contribute to the designation of policies and legislation.
How big data plays its part in education
It’s surely still in our memory when the government issued the conversion of books into tablet. The plan might be the door for big data to enter the education sector. By assuming that a student owns a tablet then it would be easier to personally monitor each student. Besides functioning as the book, the tablet might also be the media for assignments and other school exams.
The data taken from those assignments may then be analyzed much deeper. Using the data, as well as the final marks of course, teachers and parents can draw the information on what have and haven’t been learnt by their children. The challenges faced by the students may be mapped much easier as well. In New York and Washington, such initiative has been reported since last year, even though it keeps drawing debates regarding its violation towards one’s privacy.
Besides resulting on more detailed data, the technology may also be accompanied by predictive analysis to determine which learning type suits the students best. The track record on questions they solve, which ones are troublesome and the patter of answers a student has can be collected and formulated so that a better learning performance can be achieved.
It wouldn’t be easy, though, but not impossible neither. We can do no wrong by relying on technology, as it is invented to help human beings. To conclude, I would restate that big data will fit our education system very well.