Integrated National Schools to Feature World-Class Facilities

The Ministry of Elementary and Secondary Education has stated that the Integrated National Schools (SNT) initiated by President Prabowo Subianto will be equipped with facilities and infrastructure on par with international schools. Director General of Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education at the ministry, Gogot Suharwoto, said the integrated schools are designed to ensure the national education system can produce high-quality graduates with global competitiveness. “The goal is to guarantee the quality of student learning outcomes while encouraging graduate quality to meet international standards,” Gogot said during a hearing on the Revision of the National Education System Law (Sisdiknas) with House of Representatives Commission X in Senayan, Jakarta, on Tuesday, 23 June 2026.

Gogot explained there are three main aspects to be transformed through the SNT: infrastructure, human resources, and learning. In terms of facilities, the SNT is designed to have modern learning facilities with international standards. Regarding teaching staff, teachers are expected to have competencies equivalent to both national and international standards. The learning process is structured continuously from primary school through to upper secondary school. “The curriculum remains the national curriculum, but is enriched with global competencies such as STEM, energy, science, mathematics, and even sports,” he said.

Gogot then outlined three differences between SNT and regular schools. First, the SNT concept operates within a single ecosystem, so children’s talents and potential can be tracked continuously and managed by one director. Regular schools, meanwhile, are managed separately; for example, junior secondary schools are managed by districts or cities, while upper secondary schools are managed by provinces. Second, Gogot continued, SNT students are selected from high-achieving pupils in their respective regions. He said one reason for building SNT is to provide these high-achieving students with learning facilities that match their accomplishments. Currently, Gogot noted, schools with an A accreditation and literacy and numeracy scores above the national average are still very limited. Out of 7,200 sub-districts in Indonesia, he said, only 75 have schools of that quality. “That means only about one per cent have schools with such quality,” he said.

Another difference, Gogot added, is that SNT will also be equipped with more complete and modern sports facilities. According to him, the lack of infrastructure that meets international standards has been one of the factors hindering Indonesia from producing world-class athletes. “The reason we have struggled to become world champions is because our infrastructure has not met international standards,” he said. Besides serving as an educational institution for high-achieving students, SNT will also function as a centre for improving education quality in the regions. The schools are expected to become hubs for teacher training and curriculum development for surrounding schools. The Integrated National School is the third school model initiated by President Prabowo, following the People’s School and the Garuda School. In the discussion of the Sisdiknas Law revision, the ministry proposed that the central government be given the authority to organise educational units to provide a legal basis for these three school models. Head of the Standards, Curriculum, and Education Assessment Agency at the ministry, Toni Toharudin, said the presence of centrally managed educational units is intended to address strategic national needs while serving as a model of good practice that can be replicated by regional governments. “These three school models demonstrate that the central government can be present to address specific and strategic needs without altering the basic structure of regional authority,” Toni said.