Figure 1.--The Dutch colonial government did not make a major effort to create a public school system. We believe that this effort was especially limited in Papua (western New Guinea). This is the girls section at a school in the Dutch East Indies (Papua) during 1923. There was no additional information, but we believe it was a mission school.

The Congress of Vienna restored the Dutch monarchy (1815). Dutch colonial offucials which replaced the VOC after the Napoleonic Wars took over the VOC schools and begin to consider the education of Indonesians. What developed in the colony was a veery diverse, complicated system. The first tenative steps were taken in Java during the early-19th century. The Dutch Government began founding both Dutch-lamguage (primary and secondary schools) and indigenous language (primary schools). Upper class Indonesians might attend the Dutch-language schools. Dutch officials made some attempt to involve Muslim schools which were almost entirely religious in caracter in the efforts to broaden educational opportunity. This included langgar schools (Koranic recitations) and pesantren (broader Islamic religious studies). Schools during the colonial period also included Chinese schools and mission schools (both Protestant and Catholic). The colonial government gradually expanded its support of schools as the century progressed. [Aritonang] The system that developed included both Sutch anhd Indinesian schools. The Dutch schools were for the Dutch children, including the children of mixed marriages--almost always Dutch men abdc Indonesian women. Also admitted were children of the Indonesian upper class. A separate less academically rigorous system of schools was established based on ethnicity. There were separate schools for Indonesians, Arabs, and Chinese with instruction taught in Dutch with a Dutch curriculum. Schools were also established for ordinary Indonesians with a very basic curruculum. They were educated in what was at the time described as the Malay language , wwhat is now Indonesian. A Roman alphabet was used. Special 'link' schools were set up to prepare bright Indonesian students from humble families for entry into the more demanding Dutch-language schools. [Taylor, p. 286.] The Dutch also opened vocational schools. The programs were designed to train Indonesians for needed roles in the colonial economy. Chinese and Arabs desinated 'foreign orientals' were not allowed to enroll in the vocational or primary schools. [Taylor, p. 287.]

Sources

Aritonang, Jan S. Mission Schools in Batakland (Indonesia), 1861-1940.

Taylor, Jean Gelman. Indonesia: Peoples and Histories (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003).