Christian mission, catholic schools, and teacher training in Indonesia: а historical overview

This article provides a brief historical overview of the Christian mission in Indonesia, which was started by the Roman Catholic Church in the 14th century, interrupted by the Protestants in the 17th century, and was resumed by the Catholics at the beginning of the 19th century. The author of the article confers a brief description of the historical events in Indonesia during these periods and dwells on the problems of mission and education in the country. The period when access to education, including pedagogical education, was available only to the Indonesian privileged, ended at the beginning of the 20th century with the start of the missionary activity of the Dutch Jesuit missionary, Franciscus Georgius Josephus van Lith. He established Catholic educational institutions, among them, in 1906, the Hollandsch Inlandsche Kweekschool, a system of teacher training schools to prepare indigenous Indonesian boys to become the new class of society — indigenous teachers. The school later developed into the first Jesuit college in Indonesia, Xaverius Muntilan College, which also became the first Catholic boarding school to offer secondary education to the indigenous people of Java and beyond. Xavier College subsequently influenced various areas of social life in Indonesia, preparing a cultural as well as political elite from the indigenous Indonesians who became partakers in the Catholic mission. The article discusses the history of the creation of this school, characterises the pedagogical views of Romo van Lit, his approaches to the organisation of pedagogical activity and teacher training. In conclusion, it is noted that Romo van Lit was able to create an unprecedented system of educational institutions in a foreign land, which, for more than a century of existence, has gained academic recognition, by reason of its unique professional training programs for Catholic school teachers, which include the traditional values of the Indonesian people. This historical feature of teacher training in Indonesia continues to the present time.