Antara, Jakarta – The Constitutional Court decided on Tuesday, August 15, 2023, allowing general election 2024 candidates to hold campaigns in academic institutions as long as they obtain permits and wear no political attributes.
Responding to the decision, Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Cultural Affairs Muhadjir Effendy urges schools and Islamic schools to refrain from housing political campaigns.
"To avoid complexities, I urge schools and Islamic schools to avoid [housing political] campaigns," said the minister in Jakarta on Thursday, August 24, 2023.
Muhadjir reasoned that the learning process in school has not completely recovered post-pandemic. Students are still experiencing learning loss. Thus, the minister asked schools to focus on stabilizing the learning process rather than being involved in political campaigns.
"Schools that experienced anomalies in their learning process [due to the pandemic] need to mitigate the learning loss first," he said.
In addition, Muhadjir said that political campaigns in schools would be in vain since the number of voters is smaller than those in colleges. "I could see the benefits [of the political campaign] in universities, as long as it is conducive. Further, [college] students are voters, with higher [political] awareness level," the minister explained.
Meanwhile, the implementing director of Higher Education, Research, and Technology of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology Nizam reminded universities to remain neutral and distance themselves from political activities. According to Nizam, academic activities cannot be sacrificed for political activities on campus.
Nizam asked universities to refrain from affiliating or being directly involved with political activities to maintain its main purpose as a platform for intellectuals. Currently, the ministry is looking for ways to maintain the integrity and neutrality of universities.