A few days after sharing the stage with 𝐃𝐫. 𝐈𝐰𝐚𝐧 𝐒𝐲𝐚𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐥, Director General of Early Childhood, Primary, and Secondary Education of Indonesia at Digital Learning Week in Paris (during a Gateways plenary), and two years after interviewing 𝐇.𝐄. 𝐍𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐞𝐦 𝐀𝐧𝐰𝐚𝐫 𝐌𝐚𝐤𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐦, Indonesia's Minister of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology, I had the honour of rejoining them at the Gateways Study Visit Indonesia 2024 in Bali.
I had the privilege of joining 𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐍𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐞𝐦, previously the founder of Southeast Asia's second decacorn, during various moments including a Fireside Chat on "Shaping the Future of Learning: Global Insights on Educational Transformation" - also with 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤 𝐖𝐞𝐬𝐭, Gateways Lead at UNESCO; 𝐒𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐚𝐤𝐮 𝐍𝐨𝐦𝐮𝐫𝐚 from the World Bank; and 𝐈𝐭𝐣𝐞 𝐂𝐡𝐨𝐝𝐢𝐝𝐣𝐚𝐡, Executive Chair of the Indonesian National Commission for UNESCO.
Minister Nadiem delivered a compelling keynote address titled "Beyond Tech Intervention: Navigating Indonesia's Education Transformation," in which he emphasized human-centered digital transformation, the need to leverage digital to address key "pain points" in education, prioritization with limited resources - focusing on supporting teachers, school principals, and local governments - and the essential role of digitization for the effective and efficient management of the world's 4th largest education system.
We also learned about the impact of Indonesia's digital platforms, including Merdeka Mengajar: a “super app” for teachers, with more than 3.2 million active users. And Dr. Iwan Syahril, who played a pivotal role at the Gateways event, has led the development and implementation of transformative policies over the past years that impact over 300,000 schools in Indonesia.
I had the honor of meeting Dr. Suharti, Secretary General of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of Indonesia, along with many senior representatives from the country. During the Gateways event, we also explored collaboration opportunities between the Global Learning Innovation Hub in Finland and the Government of Indonesia.
I vividly recall what Minister Nadiem told me during the interview two years ago: "Imagine the day when a teacher somewhere in Sulawesi, Indonesia, can connect with a teacher in a remote town in Finland and exchange notes with auto-translation." Perhaps one day, national communities of teachers established in countries like Indonesia will link to other such communities in countries around the world - or even become global communities of teachers.
Nadiem Makarim Iwan Syahril GoTo Group itje chodidjah Sobhi Tawil Anttalainen Kati Julia Peho Jussi Karakoski Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland Embassy of Finland in Indonesia Haruki Kurihara Bajinder Pal SINGH Leotes Lugo Helin Evelyn Casanova
#EducationInnovation #DigitalTransformation #SDG4 #Indonesia #Finland #EducationReform #EdTech #UNICEFLearningInnovationHub #UNICEF
