Gov’t to Increase Investment in Education to Promote Research, Innovations

Strengthening the education sector is a primary foundation for boosting innovation and research, as well as for creating breakthroughs, which will determine Indonesia’s competitive edge in the future.

President Prabowo Subianto made the statement in his remarks during a meeting with researchers from the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) at the Presidential Palace Complex in Jakarta, Thursday (08/06).

On that occasion, the Head of State highlighted Indonesia’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) achievement, stressing that it should serve as a form of evaluation to continuously improve the national education quality.

“We should take this as a warning to correct ourselves and find a solution. We achieved a quite high score in 2003–2006. After that, our score fell, according to them, in reading, mathematics, and so on,” he said.

According to the President, Indonesia faces more complex education challenges than other countries due to its vast territory and the number of educational units.

“Indonesia has 388,000 schools, if I’m not mistaken; please verify it. Some of them are located up in the mountains and in the outermost islands. Providing the best education quality throughout Indonesia is a great challenge. Perhaps even the Head of the North Maluku or North Sulawesi Provincial Office of Education has a problem inspecting schools in Miangas [island], in remote islands,” he said.

The Head of State underscored that progress in research and innovation is closely tied to the quality of education. He added that the Government prioritizes investing in education to equip the future generation with the skills to create inventions, innovations, and patents that are useful for national development.

“To create innovations, breakthroughs, and inventions, and to obtain patents and the like, the foundation is education. That is why I want a large investment in the education sector for our future generations,” he said.

The President pointed out that the Government has taken steps to achieve that goal, including rehabilitating schools’ physical conditions and building top schools for high-achieving students. These top schools are set to implement the International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum so that their alumni meet educational standards equivalent to those of the world’s best institutions and are capable of competing for admission to the world’s top universities.

“We will cooperate with and invite the world’s best universities. They will cooperate with our universities, be it under joint cooperation or operational cooperation. We have two schemes,” he said.

The President further said that all those efforts are long-term investment that requires continued commitment, while stressing that Indonesia’s investment in research and development needs to be increased.

“This is a long-term investment. As a nation, we must reflect. Our investment in research and development is very low, much lower than it should be. We must correct it,” he said while underscoring that the Government will continue to enhance the efficiency of state finances to increase investment in this sector.

“For that reason, we certainly need funds. We will find the funds by saving money from allocations prone to corruption, fraud, underinvoicing, or mismanagement,” he remarked. (BPMI of Presidential Secretariat) (DH/AW)