Nadiem Questions Use of 85 Per Cent of Chromebook Laptops Still Active Until 2025

JAKARTA — Nadiem Makarim questioned former head of the Centre for Data and Information Technology (Pusdatin) of the Ministry of Education and Culture, Muhammad Hasan Chabibie, regarding the fact that approximately 85 per cent of Chromebook-based laptops remain actively used in schools until last year.

Hasan, who served as a witness, was interrogated by the former Education Minister during a continuation of the hearing for an alleged corruption case involving the procurement of Chromebook-based laptops.

“I want to ask, do you know how many of the total Chromebooks were still active in 2025? Do you know that figure?” Nadiem asked during the hearing at Jakarta’s Tipikor Court on Monday, 2 March 2026.

Initially, Hasan claimed he did not know because he no longer works at Pusdatin.

Nadiem’s team then presented data obtained from the ministry’s dashboard, which had previously been explained by Hasan when questioned by the Public Prosecutor’s Office (JPU).

Nadiem read out the data showing that approximately 85 per cent of Chromebooks remained active despite the procurement having occurred long ago.

“Based on the last login data from the total cumulative figure, and this is from a total of 1.4 million that are active, 85 per cent of Chromebooks in 2025 are still active, 85 per cent. Despite the fact that considerable time has passed, many are already four or five years old,” Nadiem stated.

Nadiem then questioned the ministry’s need for a device management system to control devices down to regional level. “If we talk about device manager, one of our problems in the IT world is that we have difficulty controlling the use of devices in those areas,” Hasan responded.

CDM (Chromebook Device Management) is a tool that can block and restrict access to certain websites on devices, in this case laptops, in accordance with desired settings.

Hasan confirmed that CDM is important for controlling certain content deemed harmful to students, such as pornography and online gambling.

“Is it important to prevent negative content such as pornography?” asked Nadiem.

“Yes, in that case I agree,” Hasan replied.

Furthermore, with CDM in place, the central government could retrieve various data from regional administrations.