Anies Baswedan, rector of Jakarta’s Paramadina University has been inaugurated as the new minister for primary and secondary education. His main focus and challenge will be to improve on access to primary and secondary education for students nationwide, which was one of the main campaign promises by the new president Mr. Joko Widodo (better known as Jokowi). In addition, Jokowi also touted extending the current nine-year mandatory basic education program to 12 years of free education, which might have long term implications for pathways towards higher education if implemented successfully. Another Jokowi initiative is to merge tertiary education to the ministry for research and technology, the rationale being to get Indonesian universities to work with the private sector in generating research and technology that could be applied in real-world situations.
As the new administration is still in it’s infancy, we anticipate further policy to be announced in due course. British Council will update further news in due course.