Minister of Primary and Secondary Education Focuses on Reducing Quality Gap in Basic and Secondary Education

The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education is fully committed to reducing the quality gap in education that currently persists between regions and between state and private schools. Minister of Primary and Secondary Education Abdul Mu’ti stressed that one of the major challenges in national education today, including within charitable networks such as Muhammadiyah, is the problem of quality disparity. “Among our problems at the national level, at least in Muhammadiyah, including state schools, is the quality gap. So there is still a quality gap between one region and another, as well as a quality gap between state and private schools,” he said after attending an education gathering at Muhammadiyah Sapen Universal School (MSUS) in Bantul on Sunday (5/7). In response to this challenge, the Ministry is committed to implementing a dual strategy: maintaining the standards of already advanced schools while boosting those that are lagging behind through affirmative policies. “Because of that, we are committed. For schools that are already of high quality, we will maintain their standards, while those that are still underdeveloped will be given affirmation so they can progress further,” he added. As a concrete step, the Ministry has established a new unit or directorate specifically tasked with overseeing the improvement of education and health service quality in the areas that need it most. The main focus this year, he said, is to provide priority assistance to schools with minimal facilities and to limit policies involving non-urgent budget negotiations or delays. “We decided to form a new unit tasked with improving the quality of government and health services specifically. We assign it to handle education services, especially in the 3T (Disadvantaged, Frontier, and Outermost) regions. Many small tasks emerge, including schools whose facilities are still far from ideal. We are not prioritising renegotiations this year; we are limiting them to focus on strengthening,” he concluded.