The Education of Kokumin Gakkô (Sekolah Rakjat) in Java under the Japanese Occupation
Japan occupied Indonesia-the Netherlands East Indies from March 1942 through August 1945. In Java the Japanese Military Administration re-opened the elementary schools in April 1942 which were called Kokumin Gakko (Sekolah Rakjat, six years, there was another three-years system called Shoto Kokumin Gakko, in this paper call them together as Kokumin Gakko). The curriculums and educational system under the Dutch rule were replaced by the Japanese-style based on the ideology of “Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.”This paper analyzes the education in Kokumin Gakko through 38 volumes of textbooks published by the Japanese authority. All the first edition of these textbooks were published by the end of 1943, except one book which was published in May 1944.Only one textbook which was faithful to the Japanese educational ideology was Yoi-Kodomo (Good Children) vol. 1 which was published in May 1944. The contents of other textbooks published by the end of 1943 under the Japanese rule did not differ very much from those used during the Dutch colonial rule. There was a clear gap between the formal educational policy and the contents of the school textbooks under the Japanese rule. The Japanese made up for this shortcoming by extra-curriculum activities which strongly reflected the Japanese war-time ideology. As far as the contents of textbooks are concerned, we can easily find out continuity from the Dutch rule to the Japanese occupation, and even to the independent Indonesia after World War II.