Anies Baswedan's Comments on the Ministry of Education's Plan to Close Irrelevant Study Programmes
Former Minister of Education and Culture Anies Baswedan has responded to the government’s proposal to close study programmes irrelevant to industry. He stated that the plan is concerning and raises questions.
“There are policies that appear efficient in the short term, but if not handled carefully, they could steer the nation’s direction astray in the long term,” Anies said in a post on his personal X account @aniesbaswedan on Saturday, 25 April 2026.
He noted that pure sciences are often viewed as distant from practice. Anies likened pure sciences in Indonesia to an ivory tower standing tall but not touching the pulse of industrial needs.
However, he said, pure sciences are the root of most innovations used today. “Formulas that seem abstract, theories once deemed ‘useless’, have given birth to technologies we now consider essential,” he stated.
Anies said pure sciences are a foundation built by previous learners. Even research in pure sciences is not based on market demands like current industrial needs.
“But on curiosity to understand how the world works,” said the former Governor of Jakarta.
Moreover, Anies stated that relevance cannot always be measured in the short term. According to him, what currently seems irrelevant to industry may in the future become its backbone.
Anies is worried that the state’s approach to producing thinkers from campuses by closing programmes deemed no longer relevant creates pragmatism. Indonesia, he said, risks becoming mere users rather than creators.
Moreover, he assessed that strong public policies come from solid basic understanding, such as epidemiology, environmental science, or theoretical economics. Anies said all these sciences are rooted in fields often seen as impractical.
“Closing or weakening pure sciences means reducing our ability to understand the world deeply. Without that understanding, our decisions easily become shallow,” he said.
Nevertheless, he acknowledged that connecting university sciences with industry is important. However, he said universities must not detach from the needs of the times.
Therefore, to address this challenge, the solution is not to close pure sciences or programmes no longer relevant to industry. Anies believes the government should bridge and strengthen the ecosystem instead of closing.
Because, he assessed, the purpose of higher education is not merely to produce workers for industry. More than that, Anies said higher education is meant to prepare the future and build the nation’s civilisation.
“Therefore, perhaps what we need to maintain is balance. By maintaining that balance, we can stand tall as a nation that not only follows global progress but also creates it,” Anies said.
Previously, the plan to close programmes deemed irrelevant to the workforce was conveyed by the Secretary General of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology Badri Munir Sukoco at the 2026 National Population Symposium in Badung Regency, Bali, on Thursday, 23 April 2026.
He explained that this step is taken to reduce the gap between university graduates and the competencies needed in the workforce. The Ministry recorded that campuses graduate up to 1.9 million bachelor’s degrees each year. However, he said, these graduates struggle to find jobs because their educational backgrounds do not match field needs.
One of them, Badri mentioned, social sciences and education programmes are experiencing oversupply or excess graduate supply. Badri said the plan to close irrelevant programmes will be executed soon. He then asked universities to willingly select which programmes need to be closed.
“Later, there may be some that we have to execute in not too long regarding programmes; we need to select, sort, and if necessary, close them to increase relevance,” said Badri Munir Sukoco, monitored from the YouTube replay of the Ministry of Population and Family Development.