Vocational High School Teachers' Perception of The Implementation of Merdeka Curriculum

This study aims to find out the perceptions of vocational
high school teachers' understanding of the implementation of the Merdeka
curriculum. There are changes and updates to the Merdeka curriculum.
These differences and updates lie in the structure of the curriculum in the
Merdeka curriculum, the learning system that uses a block learning system,
as well as changes in the components of the learning device which are used
as guidelines by the teacher in the teaching and learning process. With this
research, the author knows more deeply and in detail about what is in the
Merdeka curriculum. This research also provides an overview of
phenomena or issues in the education world, especially in the Merdeka
curriculum. This study used a qualitative approach and the data produced in
this study were the perceptions of EFL teachers at vocational high schools
regarding the implementation of the Merdeka curriculum. English teachers
at vocational high schools were used as data sources in the interview
process and transcript process. Then the data were analyzed using reduction
analysis. Based on the results of this study, Merdeka's curriculum structure
contains an intracurricular learning group of subjects that is divided into
two groups: a general group that is mandatory to form student norms, and a
major group that is assigned to each student based on their expertise
program, which aims to prepare them for the workforce. The Merdeka
curriculum structure contains the Pancasila Student Profile, which
represents the teacher's hopes for students. In terms of implementation, it is
still necessary to consider a block system when creating the learning
system. The Teaching Module is a very detailed learning tool where in the
Learning Outcomes the teacher can modify or add according to the
innovations they have.