The legacy of Jokowi's education policy for Prabowo

Prabowo-Gibran, whose candidacy for president and vice-president sparked controversy, will take office from October 20, 2024.

To protect their government, we have published a special edition of #PantauPrabowo which contains important questions resulting from our mapping with the TCID author network. This edition also evaluates the 10 years of Joko Widodo's government and prepares Prabowo-Gibran for office.

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The end of Joko Jokowi Widodo's rule in October 2024 raises several questions about policies that usually change according to changes in political constellations, particularly in education.

During his reign, Jokowi, through the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology (Kemendikbudristek), made several policies in the field of education. These include the Campus Independent Learning Program, the World Class University Policy and the latest changes to the Teacher Career System. Permendikbudristek n° 44/2024.

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Read more: Curriculum changes in Indonesia: why?

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This article reviews educational policies under the Jokowi administration and recommends how these policies should be continued under the Prabowo Subianto era.

international mecca

Jokowi-era education policy focused heavily on internationalization. This can be seen from the target World-class university which encourages Indonesian campuses to compete to achieve this.

On the one hand, this goal encourages Indonesian campuses to compete on the international stage. But on the other hand, this obsession with international rankings does not have a positive effect on Indonesia's real problems.

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Read more: 'World-class university' goal: Where do you want Indonesian higher education to take you?

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In fact, campus products should be available respond to community issues through Tri Dharma activities, namely education and teaching, research and community service.

This international orientation is also manifested by the use of international ranking indicators that address more quantitative aspects such as the number of publications, citations and the number of grants.rather than the quality of research impact.

The international ranking system also relies too heavily on indexers from reputable international journals. In fact, the system actually becomes arena of capitalism and journalism.

The educational policy of the Prabowo era should focus on the production of new theories as the highest level of research. Because one of the results of basic research is new theory, still very minimal in Indonesia.

The fate of teachers' careers

Jokowi's government also issued several policies related to the plight of teachers, such as changes in career administration and recognition of teachers' credit scores. sparked controversy.

More recently, the Ministry of Education and Culture published Permendikbudristek n° 44/2024 on career changes as a teacher. In terms of social protection, this latest regulation favors teachers in terms of performance allowances because these will begin to be granted to teachers benefiting from State Civil Apparatus (ASN) status with the Ministry of Education and Culture. in 2025. Additionally, quota limits for lecturer certificate was abolished so that teachers would have more opportunities to obtain teaching certificates.

However, this policy has several important aspects that the Prabowo government must pay attention to.

Instead of urging teachers to determine the knowledge group as soon as possible because it constitutes a reference for the evaluation of professional careers, Prabowo's government should place more emphasis on the contribution and novelty of research. Thus, the professor's research path map will show an increasing level of new discoveries and produce theoretical discoveries, or even create a system among current theories. not yet popular in domestic academic field. Furthermore, the linearity requirement is no longer relevant to global conditions.

This is also related to new regulations that delegate the authority to grant state chairs to each campus to comply. The ideal target is a study program, a teacher. This policy is subject to abuse. Because by granting chairs only from the State, there is still a lot of fraud pursue a professorship.

Likewise with the removal of the obligation to perform the Tri Dharma for lecturers who serve as responsible for the structure of the campus, such as chancellor, vice-chancellor, dean, vice-dean or curriculum officer (kaprodi), and the freedom to choose just one of the Tri Dharma activities to reduce the workload of lecturers. It is not impossible, this policy will mean that only non-structural lecturers carry out the Tri Dharma, while structural lecturers tend to focus on structural and administrative activities.

In essence, with this latest policy, the next government will still have to implement control and supervision mechanisms, so that cases like scientific work and fraud in the pulpit process, as happened during Jokowi's era, can be avoided.

Independent study program

A flagship program of the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Independent Campus Learning (MBKM) program has a positive side as it gives students the freedom to Choose an area of ​​interest with a variety of learning models.

One of MBKM's derivative programslink and match with the world of work also deserves to be appreciated even if the number of new unemployed graduates still a lot.

These two policies can strengthen collaboration between the world of work and education, for example through certified internship or teaching practitioner programs. These programs will enrich the field's perspective in academia so that students gain knowledge and skills that are truly relevant to the world of work.

The MBKM program is worth continuing under Prabowo's leadership. However, with the caveat that this not only addresses the need to find work, but rather supports the development of Indonesia into a scientific mecca with groundbreaking discoveries contributing to it.

In this way, a balance between efforts to reduce the number of unemployed and to develop knowledge can be achieved.

Message to Prabowo

Education issues in Indonesia are indeed complex. The solution must therefore be systemic. This can start by changing the direction of the future direction of education, improving regulations and strengthening university culture.

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Read more: Revising rules and redirecting goals can be a solution to academic violations

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In fact, Indonesia must dare to dream of changing the direction of science by becoming a science center in the future. However, this can only be achieved if future policies do not compromise with all kinds of academic fraud and publishing capitalism.