JakartaPost-May 31
Since his appointment as the education, culture, research and technology minister in 2019, Nadiem Makarim has rolled out numerous policies that have taken many by surprise. Although a lot of his policies were deemed innovative and revolutionary, observers have pointed out that, during his almost five-year term in office, Nadiem still failed to address fundamental problems that have blighted the country’s education system for decades. One of Nadiem’s very first moves as a minister was introducing the Merdeka Belajar (independent learning) curriculum, which aims to develop more flexible and effective methods for teachers with the focus of character building and boosting basic competencies in literacy and numeracy. The curriculum further gives teachers flexibility to structure classes to better suit different learning styles. Another bold innovation brought about by entrepreneur-turned-minister Nadiem was to replace the decades-old national exams (UN) with the National Assessment (AN); with the former requiring students nationwide to take standardized tests in math, English, Indonesian and other subjects, despite tangible learning disparities across the vast archipelago. Nadiem said that Merdeka Belajar had helped Indonesia minimize learning loss during the COVID-19 pandemic and allowed the country to move up six places in the 2022 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) ranking. However, educational expert Doni Koesoema pointed out that although Indonesia’s overall ranking improved, the results of the latest PISA survey showed declines across all categories compared with the previous survey. Separately, education expert from the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) Anggi Afriansyah argued that Nadiem had also failed to address the country’s chronic lack of teachers and their poor welfare. But the Education, Culture, Research and Technology Ministry’s director general of teachers and educational workers, Nunuk Suryani, said that the ministry had been upgrading the status of teachers to government contract employees (PPPK) to improve their welfare. Read more at: https://www.thejakartapost.com/indonesia/2024/05/31/high-flyer-in-some-subjects-nadiemfails-to-make-grade-inbasic-course-work.html
