Amid Global Crisis, Pratikno Urges In-Person Schooling to Proceed as Usual

Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Culture (Menko PMK) Pratikno is urging the process of teaching and learning activities (KBM) to proceed in person as usual amid the current global crisis situation. Following coordination with the Minister of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology and the Minister of Religious Affairs, Menko PMK conveyed the importance of ensuring that students’ learning processes continue as normal. In the education sector, the learning process must be increasingly optimal and learning loss must not occur. Therefore, priority is given to conducting the learning process offline for students. Pratikno stated that there had previously been discussions about the possibility of using a hybrid method combining offline and online approaches. However, considering the importance of maintaining the quality of students’ education, cross-ministry discussions concluded that online learning for students is not an urgency at this time. “As per the extraordinary priority of the President for the education sector, from school revitalisation, Sekolah Rakyat, and Sekolah Unggul Garuda, we must accelerate the improvement of overall education quality, both under the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology, the Ministry of Religious Affairs, and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology. This is a priority. This is paramount,” said Pratikno in his statement on Wednesday (25/3). As part of government transformation, Pratikno has instructed to accelerate the transformation of the Electronic-Based Government System, improve bureaucratic performance, enhance public services, and achieve efficiency in all areas. In response to the global situation impacting society, he hopes that non-essential official travel will be cut, meetings and discussions optimised virtually, and flexible working arrangements (FWA) implemented in a measured manner as part of more effective and efficient work transformation. “Public services, improvement of human resource quality, and supporting accelerated equitable development must continue to be strengthened through smarter and more efficient methods,” he explained. The former State Secretary also directly quoted the statement of the President of the Republic of Indonesia that the global crisis situation should be used as a momentum to accelerate the national transformation agenda. “The crisis actually accelerates our transformation plans. In the end, we are forced to accelerate. We already understand the problems; for a long time, we have wanted food self-sufficiency and energy self-sufficiency. We have been heading towards that. But now we will accelerate it,” he concluded.