“The government, represented by the Office of the Coordinating Economic Minister and the Education and Culture Ministry, suggests the working committee revoke provisions regarding four laws stipulated in the job creation bill,” an expert staff member at the Office of the Coordinating Economic Minister, Elen Setiadi, said on Thursday as quoted by kompas.com.

The provisions in question are some articles in Law No. 20/2003 on the national education system, Law No. 14/2005 on teachers and lecturers, Law No. 12/2012 on higher education and Law No. 20/2013 on medical education.

House Legislation Body (Baleg) chairman Supratman Andi Agtas, who chaired Thursday’s meeting, said he was glad that the government listened to aspirations from lawmakers and the public.

Read also: NU, Muhammadiyah join coalition opposing educational provisions in omnibus bill

Previously, lawmakers, teachers and lecturers demanded that education issues be scrapped from the draft bill as they deemed several articles within the draft as counterproductive to ongoing efforts to improve the quality of national education.

Concerns were raised over the possible commercialization of the education sector and the business license requirement to establish educational institutions, as well as discrimination against teachers with a bachelor’s degree from a domestic university as the bill no longer required teachers who graduated from an accredited foreign university to have an education certificate.

Though the government has agreed to scrap the education provisions from the bill, Elen said it also suggested establishing a regulation on licensing for educational institutions in special economic zones to control how education was implemented. (aly)

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