The commission released a statement proposing that forging a new social contract for education offered both the vision and process for transforming education.

Specifically, the statement lists five strategic direction changes, to: 1) make educational systems places of equal opportunity and shared abundance by advancing inclusion through changes to educational cultures and practices that reduce competition and selection, 2) foster curricula focused more on connections than categories by supporting interdisciplinary, intercultural and ecological approaches in and outside formal education, 3) support teachers to create transformative education by investing in teaching that builds cooperation and solidarity, 4) ensure that the digital connects us to each other and to the world by building open-access content, public platforms and committing to democratic, participatory governance and 5) strengthen education as a global common good by ensuring more equitable cooperation within and across countries.

What are the chances for Indonesia to set these changes in direction? This article focuses on teachers’ resilience – pertaining particularly to directions one-through-three to transform education in Indonesia for just and sustainable futures.

Education has always had to adapt and respond to a changing world. We have just passed a three-year school closure where there was a variation of responses ranging from no or little learning to enhanced online learning (Lie, et al, 2020; Lie, et al, in press). Learning loss was reported in Indonesia (Beatty et al., 2020; Save the Children, 2020; Yarrow et al., 2020 and SMERU, 2020) as well as in many other parts of the world (Bielinski et al., 2021).

The term “learning loss” is commonly used to describe a decline in students’ knowledge and skills (Pier et al., 2021). Learning loss occurs when educational progress, which is often measured through regular testing, does not appear at the same rate significantly compared with the previous years.

Research on learning loss and recommendations to close the gap was published by Bielinski et al. in 2021, revealing a significant score loss varied by assessment and grade levels and showing younger students experienced more loss. In brief, there is clear evidence that students learned less during lockdown than in a typical year (Engzell et al., 2021).

In a study sponsored by Tanoto Foundation in 2022, a survey of over 3,000 teachers found instances of learning barriers during the pandemic school closures and revealed teachers’ coping strategies in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.

We clustered the different situations of learning barriers into three: low severity, mid severity and high severity. Furthermore, a sample of teachers from each cluster was interviewed to further probe into their perspectives and learning recovery strategies in the aftermath of the school closures.

Low-severity situations were characterized by circumstances where over 75 percent of students had their own gadgets and internet at home to engage in online learning and thus were able to search for information, collaborate with peers and communicate with their teachers to seek assistance.

In low-severity situations, learning loss was minimal. In the mid-severity situation, about half of the students had their own gadgets and internet at home to participate in online learning. In the high severity situation, fewer than 50 percent of the students had their own gadgets and internet at home.

Only around 18 percent of the 3,197 teacher respondents reported a low-severity situation and 23 percent a mid-severity situation. This means more than half of the teacher respondents reported to be in the high-severity situation, meaning that emergency remote teaching during the pandemic did not reach their students optimally.

On the flip side of this disheartening finding was the teachers’ responses to the predicament. Regardless of their level of severity during the emergency remote teaching, 93 percent of the surveyed teachers reported willingness and readiness to provide extra tutorial and remedial sessions to those students who suffered from learning loss.

In-depth interviews with select teachers yielded insights on their resilience and dedication to their students. Most of them felt very concerned about their students’ changed behaviors and reduced capabilities due to the absence of face-to-face interactions. Some of the teachers who were teaching in the high-severity regions even went the extra mile by visiting their students’ homes to deliver the lessons and handouts.

In a nutshell, teachers’ resilience gives us hope for the future of education in Indonesia. It is still a long way before Indonesia has a high-quality teaching force. Yet, teachers’ resilience is a necessary start.

The first three of the five strategic directions for change as proposed by the International Commission on the Futures of Education directly relate to the teaching force.

First, advancing inclusion through changes to educational cultures and practices that reduce competition and selection is urgently needed to make educational systems places where every student, regardless of their socioeconomic background, has an equal opportunity to thrive. A pedagogy of solidarity and collaboration should be the driving spirit to provide quality education for all children. Teachers in our study have expressed concerns and beliefs that their students should not be left behind and are willing to put in the extra hours to help them catch up.

The second direction has been met with the launch of the Freedom Curriculum by the Education, Culture, Research and Technology Ministry on Feb. 11. Curricula that focus more on connections than categories through interdisciplinary, intercultural and ecological approaches entail continuous teacher professional development. Teachers’ enduring resilience is potential social and cultural capital to develop their competence in order to set the Freedom Curriculum in motion. This leads us to the next direction change.

The third direction is clearly necessary as teachers need support to create transformative education. As a blessing in disguise, out of the pandemic school closures, communities of practice among teachers have evolved digitally, connecting teachers from various regions through the Teacher Professional Education (PPG) Program, Activator Teachers Program, the Education Ministry web-based Teachers Share platforms and a dozen other initiatives.

In sum, a pedagogy of cooperation and solidarity should start from the teachers before it can transform education into more just and sustainable futures for all children in Indonesia.

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The writer is a professor at Widya Mandala Surabaya Catholic University, Surabaya, who obtained her PhD in education from Baylor University, Texas, the United States.