As one of the world's largest and most diverse countries, Indonesia faces an enormous challenge as it seeks to upgrade the skills and knowledge of its widespread primary teacher workforce. This challenge is even more acute in remote rural areas, where practising teachers require specialized training to work in classrooms with children of different…

On the basis of a comprehensive best-evidence synthesis of the literature on the effects of multigrade and multi-age classes, Veenman (1995) concluded that there were no significant differences between multigrade and single-grade classes in cognitive or achievement effects. Subsequently, Mason and Burns (1996) challenged Veenman's conclusion,…

Although the single-grade classroom has emerged as the most prevalent administrative arrangement, the existence of the split grade phenomenon continues to be a part of educational tradition in both rural and urban schools, predominantly at the elementary levels. Teachers are then forced to compromise curriculum to teach all levels simultaneously.…

Questionnaires were developed to get demographic, administrative, and pedagogical information from both rural and urban districts. Replies were received from 89.9 percent of the superintendents or directors of education, 83 percent of the principals of schools with multigraded classrooms, and 80 percent of the teachers of multigraded classes. An…