COMPARISON

Indonesia Australia
 General Information

INDONESIA AUSTRALIA

Continent Asia Australia

Primary languages Bahasa Indonesia English

Currency Rupiah Australian Dollar

Goverment Republic
Commonwealth
Parliamentary Democracy
Geography

Both Australia and Indonesia are large island nations

with vast coastlines. Australia is larger at 7,692,024
square km to Indonesia's 1,922,570.
Population

With an estimated population of 251,160,124,

Indonesia's population is just over 11 times
larger than Australia's 22,262,501.
 Religion
Indonesia
Muslim 86.1%, Protestant 5.7%,
Roman Catholic 3%, Hindu 1.8%,
other or unspecified 3.4% (2000
census)
Australia
Catholic 26.4%, Anglican 20.5%,
other Christian 20.5%, Buddhist
1.9%, Muslim 1.5%, other 1.2%,
unspecified 12.7%, none 15.3%
(2001 Census)
Education
In general

In general, the Indonesian system is mainly focusing ona few type of

intelligence such as logical whereas the diversity is a lot better in
Australia.That explains why it is more difficult to find great athletes or
artists among 230 million populations in Indonesian than in only 20 million
Australians. In addition, the Indonesian system is still mostly based on
guru style, the system that has been abandoned in most of developed
countries that prefer Socratic style of teaching.
KINDERGARTEN

The children activities in the Australian kindergartens (3-5 year old) are
mostly playing, dancing, singing and other similar ones. The kids are
encouraged to speak in public and also introduced to several basic
important things such as safety and sanitation. In Indonesia , things are
quite similar. However, the reading and math are more advanced. As a
result, it is normal that kindergarten kids in Indonesia are able to read and
do some basic math. However, their social skills are less developed than
those in Australia.
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

At elementary schools, the Aussie system is considered more relax than

Indonesias. It is normal to watch an Indonesian eight year old kid
cramming in the room to study math, natural science such as geography,
and social science like history and religion, while his Aussie counterpart is
playing sport or music. When Australian system develops almost all nine
types of human intelligences, the Logical-Mathematical Intelligence is the
main focus for Indonesian kids. Also, Indonesian kids are trained to
memorize some scientific facts and figures in their textbooks, meaning
less time for playing.
HIGH SCHOOL

The high school students in Indonesia often study Physics, Math, and
Chemistry atthe standard of first year university level. They often need
additional off-school courses in order to catch up. One also could argue
that the Australian education lacks of discipline. However, when
comparing at the higher education level in both countries, the Indonesian
standard is significantly falling behind the Australians, perhaps due to
lacks of funding and resources.