Is it possible to move from the back of the knowledge line to the front in one generation? Indonesia is banking on it. The country is working to create a world- class education system using technology that will localize knowledge solutions. The innovative union of two projects, led by the Ministry of National Education and supported by the Bank’s regional education team, is at the heart of the country’s cutting edge approach. The joining of the Better Education through Reformed Management and Universal Teacher Upgrading (BERMUTU) program with an in-country distance learning network project (The Global Development Learning Network (GDLN) & Indonesia Higher Education Research and Education Network (INHERENT) is already showing impact. “Our goal is to create an education system that can produce a generation with a strong sense of identity that is capable and competitive in the global economy,” said Prof. Bambang Sudibyo, minister of national education, last December 18 at the launch of the project. (See video highlights of the BERMUTU project launch and read the press release.) A Marriage of Efficiency Indonesia faced a big challenge in 2005. The newly-mandated Teacher Law required that Indonesia’s 2.7 million primary and secondary teachers become certified with a minimum 4 year university degree equivalent over the next 10 years. The BERMUTU project responds to part of this challenge. It focuses on improving classroom instruction and upgrading teachers to a degree-level equivalent, through a block grant mechanism that local teacher clusters will use to implement their own locally-designed programs. The next challenge was how to spread the word to hundreds of future project managers and millions of teachers in often remote areas.
An innovative solution to this challenge was “born out of necessity,” noted Mae Chu Chang, education sector cluster leader, who manages both the BERMUTU and GDLN projects. The BERMUTU project required district officials across the country to be trained in project management, while GDLN had a national reach through its in-country network of local partners that now includes more than 100 universities in INHERENT. “It was the perfect arranged marriage. We needed to train 300 officials across the country and we would have had to bring them all to Jakarta for one day. Instead, we found a cost-effective option that extends far beyond that,” said Chang.
The collaboration has already paid off through a series of jointly developed workshops that combine different tools and technologies to engage and train stakeholders. The BERMUTU project was launched on December 18, 2007, and was facilitated locally at each of the 15 participating sites, and complemented by a videoconference to clarify any outstanding questions. Subsequent workshops over the coming weeks will train stakeholders on other project components (read about the December 18th launch workshop). Higher Level Impact Knowledge sharing is also playing an important role in the second prong of the government’s education improvement strategy, where it is using the GDLN-INHERENT partnership to bring world class expertise from around the world to universities across Indonesia to an education lecture series. At the request of Indonesian education officials, the first event in the education series was launched on February 12. The series is expected to complement the government’s efforts to boost the quality of tertiary education—see video from the World Class Universities event and read the story, The Future of Higher Education in 2020. Indonesia went from zero to 60,” noted Sudibyo, who spoke at the launch event. “In 2005 there were zero Indonesian universities on the international top 500 list. In 2007 we now have six universities represented. Our goal is to fast track this trend over the next several years using all the means at our disposal.” (read Indonesia Country Summary of Higher Education). The event on World Class Universities brought together government officials and administrators from more than 40 universities across Indonesia through the INHERENT network, and GDLN provided international expertise from Washington as well as learning design skills that will help shape the evolving series. In his presentation on Constructing Knowledge Societies: New Challenges for Tertiary Education, Jamil Salmi, lead education specialist, pointed to the link between per capita income and harnessing knowledge. “The key point here for Indonesia is that the effective use of knowledge, which depends on knowledge and skills and innovation, can make a very big impact on growth performance,” Salmi said. (Also read Kai-Ming Cheng’s presentation How to Establish World Class Universities.) Knowledge Path to the Future With planned improvements from the primary up through to the tertiary education levels, Indonesia is preparing to be competitive in the global knowledge economy—but will this be enough? Education is clearly important in this new economy. In fact, increasing levels of education accounted for roughly one-third of the growth in high-performing Asian economies between 1960 and 1985 (read commentary, Education pays off for Asian economies). Indonesia recognizes the obstacles they must overcome to reach their goals—low performance rates of students on standardized tests, inadequate teaching quality and high disparities between enrollment in secondary school (58 percent) and tertiary institutions (17 percent)—to name only a few (read Education Data and Statistics). To face these challenges, Indonesia is choosing to teach by doing. Using technology to harness knowledge from outside Indonesia and to share experiences across the country is a start. National ownership is also expected to have a positive impact. At the BERMUTU launch event last December, Joachim Von Amsberg, country director, remarked that, “the strong national leadership demonstrated by the government was a key ingredient to achieving a successful development outcome.” The BERMUTU project, which is scheduled to run till 2013, intends to support the Government to upgrade over 1.4 million unqualified teachers. At the tertiary level, the focus is squarely on creating world class institutions that can attract world class teaching talent, students and funding. This will continue to be supported by the ongoing Improving Management of Higher Education for Relevance and Efficiency (IMHERE) project funded by the Bank and the Government as well as the GDLN/INHERENT-hosted higher education series.
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