Hollandsch Inlandsche Kweekschool

[1] Because the HIK schools were more accessible than other forms of European education for native Indonesians, a number of figures who later rose to prominence in the late colonial and early independence era were educated in HIK schools.

[2] Older types of teacher training schools for native students had been established by missionaries in the Indies dating back to the nineteenth century; the first may have been opened in Ambon in 1834.

The HIK schools were a new development of the early twentieth century with the Dutch Ethical Policy which was in force after 1901.

[3][4] Unlike the older types of schools, the language of instruction was Dutch and the length of the program was generally six years.

There were such schools in Magelang, Blitar, Surakarta, Yogyakarta and Bandung, and later in Sumatra and other parts of the Indies.