The former chief executive officer of Gojek recently received praise for his speech marking National Teachers’ Day, in which he laid out several issues that hinder Indonesian teachers from reaching their full potential — ranging from bureaucracy to a rigid curriculum.

Over a week after the speech text was released to an outpouring of hope and support from the public, Nadiem admitted in front of hundreds of teachers, as well as representatives of communities and organizations, that he had yet to come up with a solution to these problems.

“Truthfully, I was afraid when I wrote that speech. Imagine that I had to express such a personal opinion, but as the education minister, without assurance that I could fix the iniquity,” he said during a discussion at the ministry in Jakarta on Saturday.

“I had to put myself out there and say that these were wrong and unjust, but I had yet to learn how to fix them, although I had faith that it was our responsibility together.”

Nadiem said in the speech that changes could not be made from the top, but should rather start and end with teachers.

The 35-year-old minister encouraged teachers to start small initiatives, such as engaging their students in discussion rather than telling them to listen; giving students a chance to try teaching in class; creating a social program; helping students with no confidence to find their talent and offering help to other teachers in need.

Just like he did in the speech, Nadiem reiterated that he would not make any promises but hinted at a “quite big program” in the pipeline that would involve university students going back to schools, for a long period of time, to teach and share their passion with students and teachers.

“The young people should spread what they’re passionate about in schools, with teachers and students, because they’re still bold enough to not always go by the rules,” he said.

Nadiem also called on civil society organizations to take the lead in various activities that had for long been carried out by the government, such as teacher training and leadership programs at any level of education.

“It’s not because the government is incapable or civil society is necessarily better. The problem is sustainability. The collision of ideas that leads to integration and innovation is more sustainable because it creates a culture,” he added.

As Indonesia’s education enrollment has increased by more than 10 million students over the past decade, it has not been coupled with improved learning outcomes, a 2019 World Bank report has found.

In its report titled The Promise of Education in Indonesia, the World Bank reveals that 35 percent of Indonesian children are unable to read and understand a simple story by age 10. A high rate of this inability is usually a clear indication that a school system is not properly organized to help children acquire fundamental skills, often causing students to fail to thrive later in school or when they join the workforce.

Education expert Totok Amin Soefijanto suggested bureaucracy streamlining and the use of information technology to reduce teachers’ burden of administrative work. “But who can ensure that with less administrative work, teachers will be more creative in their teaching? It won’t affect anything unless they’re given training to improve their creativity and capacity,” he said.

He said that training programs had not been well organized by the government, prompting teachers to rely heavily on training provided through corporate social responsibility programs.

“The training should be based on pre-assessment instead of arbitrarily to define what these teachers lack and need,” he said.

Furthermore, Totok noted that the recruitment of teachers should not be likened to that of ordinary civil servants. Separate recruitment was necessary to assess their pedagogy and professional qualities.

The World Bank report echoed these recommendations, suggesting that Indonesia tighten the recruitment of teachers, improve teacher training programs and their evaluation, as well as providing incentives to improve teachers’ accountability.

Indonesia has allocated 20 percent of the state budget to education, as mandated by the Constitution, with about half of this going on teachers’ salaries and allowances. Teachers, if certified or deployed in remote areas, receive additional allowances.

While supporting the scheme, Dewi Susanti — a senior social development specialist with the World Bank — said last year that better-paid and certified teachers did not produce different learning outcomes from those who were uncertified as a result of a lack of supervision by the government.

Also at the discussion, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati underlined that as Indonesia applied a decentralization system, local administrations played a bigger role in managing education funds.

Sri Mulyani said the system raised concerns because each administration had different capacities and approaches toward education, which led to different outcomes.  

This discrepancy in education quality is clearly reflected in the World Bank report, which shows that only four provinces — namely Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Central Java and Riau Islands — had an average senior secondary national exam score that exceeded the minimum passing grade of 55 in 2019.

“The education budget is the only [budget] function authorized by our Constitution, but I feel that we just put it like that, while the stakeholders haven’t really sat down together to address how we can organize ourselves and the funds.

“So even if the budget is large, with additional funds from the goodwill of other parties, the budget is still deemed insufficient. This means that something is wrong with the way we organize ourselves,” Sri Mulyani said.

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