JakartaPost-May 15
President Prabowo Subianto’s initiative to equip every school with so-called “smart screens” has been met with concerns of a misplaced priority, with experts contending that the budget for the high-tech equipment should instead be used to solve more fundamental problems surrounding the country’s education system. During the National Education Day celebration earlier this month, President Prabowo, accompanied by Elementary and Secondary Education Minister Abdul Mu’ti, visited a grade six classroom at SDN Cimahpar 5 state elementary school in Bogor, West Java, to see the smart screen program in action. In a video uploaded by the schools, students took turns using the screen to solve math and science quizzes in the form of interactive games, guided by their teacher. In his speech following the classroom tour, Prabowo announced that the screens will be rolled out to the first handful of schools within months, with a goal of reaching every school in the country within a year. “[Through these screens], we can provide the best lessons [for students across the country]. And this will be beneficial for schools, both in cities and in the country’s least-developed regions, which have difficulty getting materials or teachers who are experts in certain fields,” the President said. Schools Minister Mu’ti later confirmed that the government has allocated Rp 2 trillion (US$121 million) to procure the smart screens as well as to train teachers in operating the equipment. Mu’ti acknowledged that the budget will be enough to buy screens for around 15,000 schools, far short of the country’s more than 220,000 state and private schools. He noted that the government would seek corporate support through corporate social responsibility programs to expand the initiative. Misplaced priority education observers, however, say the smart screen initiative is the government’s attempt to paper over more fundamental problems plaguing the country’s education sector. Nisa Felicia, executive director of the Center for Education and Policy Studies (PSPK), said that if the government is looking to tackle the issue of a lack of specialist teachers, it should instead recruit more or give existing teachers more training rather than spending Rp 2 trillion to procure and operate screens. “A lot of schools have shown that they don’t need fancy technology to teach their students well,” Nisa told The Jakarta Post last week. Nisa added that the screens policy could also result in schools adopting a more hands-off approach, as schools might increasingly rely on ministry-issued videos to teach their students, even in subjects where teachers are available. Read more at: https://www.thejakartapost.com/indonesia/2025/05/16/critics-slam-prabowos-smart-screens-as-misplaced-education-priority.html.
