Of all the new ministers in President Joko Widodo’s second government, none has sparked more debate and controversy than the 35-year-old Harvard-educated Nadiem Makarim, Indonesia’s new education and culture minister. Barely two months into his new job, Nadiem shocked parents and teachers alike by announcing that the country’s National Examination (Ujian Nasional), a former prerequisite for high school graduates intending to work or go to universities, was antiquated and would be abolished. After serving for many years as the standard evaluation system of primary and secondary education in Indonesia, the test will be replaced by a minimum competency assessment aimed primarily at evaluating students’ literacy and numerical competence.
“Literacy is not only about reading capability but the ability to analyze reading materials and to understand the concepts behind the words,” said Nadiem, founder of the successful online motorcycle taxi company Gojek. Most of all, the competency assessment will be held not just at the end of the students’ secondary year, but three times during their entire 12 years at school. The reasoning for the radical change, according to Nadiem, is to allow schools, teachers and students to make necessary improvements long before graduating.
Arguably, the National Examination has been problematic right from the start in 2003. As the only acceptable secondary school accreditation, the exams were often subject to cheating, fraud, and, inevitably, corruption. Copies of leaked answers, for example, would be sold by touts to students prior to taking the exam. Previous education ministers have attempted to initiate reforms, but they faced opposition from the bureaucracy and the political elite, anxious to preserve the status quo. A 2018 study by the Sydney, Australia-based Lowy Institute titled Beyond Access: Making Indonesia’s Education System Work traced the failures of Indonesia’s education system to “politics and power”, helping the elite to accumulate resources, distribute patronage, mobilize political support and exercise political control.
The question now is whether the new education minister can succeed where others before him have failed. We certainly need changes that would make teaching at Indonesian schools less theoretical, authoritarian, and bureaucratic and open up more opportunities for creative and critical thinking—skills needed to build problem-solving capabilities. It will be a major challenge, given the vast differences in the quality of teachers and the diversity of schools, from one province to another. But Indonesia’s low scores in the latest PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) report issued by OECD (The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) make it essential for the education ministry to initiate a forward-looking program that will raise the quality of education in Indonesia. Yayasan Lontar stands ready to help in this important project.
As 2019 winds down and a new decade begins, we at Lontar wish all our friends and supporters a peaceful and productive 2020.