Jakarta – The cyclical phenomenon of "new government, new policy" is especially apparent in the national education system, which only shows the short-sightedness of policymakers, who prioritize appearance over substance. In the absence of a solid foundation, as manifested by policy inconsistency, the national education system has only devoured its schoolchildren.
The outcomes of the makeshift, trial-and-error and politically biased education system are evident. Indonesian students have consistently underperformed in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), Indonesian universities are mediocre in global rankings and no Indonesian has been nominated for the prestigious Nobel award in science, which India and Pakistan have won.
Indonesia took a step forward in the development of education when in 2002 the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) amended the Constitution to require the central and local governments to allocate 20 percent of national and regional budgets for education. However, implementation has been a major hurdle in the nation's attempt to provide quality education, as part of the huge budget has been wasted on experimenting with new systems that satisfy a few at the expense of the many.
Take the discourse about reinstating the science, social studies and language study pathways in senior high schools initiated by Elementary and Secondary Education Minister Abdul Mu'ti. If the plan materializes, it will dismantle the legacy of former education minister Nadiem Makarim, known as the Merdeka (freedom) Curriculum, which was introduced in 2021 to remove the traditional academic tracks, which were widely seen as outdated and discriminatory. Nadiem, a representative of the younger, tech-savvy generation of Indonesians, was considered an adversary of major Muslim groups like Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah, to which Mu'ti belongs.
Despite its imperfections, the Merdeka Curriculum has won praise for ending the perceived hierarchy among science, social studies and language students and encouraging them to choose subjects based on their personal interests and career aspirations.
Now, after only a few years of adoption and adaptation, the system will be reset. Mu'ti said the revival would help students prepare for the upcoming academic ability test, which is another policy set to remove Nadiem's legacy of national assessment.
Equally confusing is the Sekolah Rakyat (community school) program that President Prabowo Subianto has initiated to provide quality education to children from lower-income families and those living in abject poverty. Statistics Indonesia has found that nearly three-quarters of breadwinners below the poverty line have only graduated from elementary school. The Elementary and Secondary Education Ministry data in January of this year also discovered that poverty forced more than 730,000 elementary school graduates not to pursue secondary education.
The boarding school program will target children of all school ages when fully implemented, but the first phase, which will begin when the new academic year starts in July, will be available to senior high school students. Admission of students is underway and recruitment of teachers will begin sometime this month.
Critics have warned that the program will deepen social segregation and discrimination in society. Furthermore, it will create a stigma for the Sekolah Rakyat students, which could affect their self-confidence and academic performance.
The other controversy lies with the fact that the Social Affairs Ministry is entrusted with running the program, overstepping the authority of the Elementary and Secondary Education Ministry. It is not a coincidence that the current social affairs minister is Saifullah Yusuf of NU, the biggest Muslim organization, which supported Prabowo's presidential bid.
The Religious Affairs Ministry data in 2022 found that about 13,500 Islamic boarding schools across the country were affiliated with NU, which has been promoting Islam Nusantara (Islam of the archipelago) as a counternarrative to radical Islam in the past five years.
All of these government initiatives and innovations may originate from the noble intention of boosting the quality of national education. Oftentimes, however, the policies fail to take into consideration the aspirations of students and teachers, who are directly affected by any changes to the education system.
Students are valuable assets of the nation, not guinea pigs of populist programs. For the sake of their future, let us stop the policy flipflop.
Source: https://www.thejakartapost.com/opinion/2025/04/19/experimenting-with-education.htm