Safeguarding Educational Sovereignty Behind Foreign Aid Programmes

Amidst increasingly complex global geopolitical dynamics, education is no longer seen merely as a public service sector. It has become a strategic instrument for human resource development, national character building, and even part of international diplomacy. It is unsurprising that many developed nations use educational cooperation as an instrument of their foreign policy. Indonesia is one of the countries that has received various forms of development assistance in the education sector for more than two decades. One of the most prominent is the cooperation between the Government of Indonesia and the Government of Australia through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). Through various programmes such as the Technical Assistance for Education System Strengthening (TASS) and Innovation for Indonesia’s School Children (INOVASI), managed by Palladium, Australia has become one of the largest development partners in Indonesia’s basic education sector. The INOVASI programme itself began in January 2016, entered a second phase in 2020 integrating the TASS programme, and has continued through subsequent phases to this day. DFAT’s funding for the second phase alone reached approximately A$54.6 million, demonstrating the scale of Australia’s investment in Indonesian education reform. It is undeniable that these programmes have produced a number of good practices. Local governments have received mentoring, teachers have gained capacity building, various learning models have been trialled, and the government has obtained research-based inputs. In fact, several learning approaches developed through the programme have become references in national education reform. This fact deserves appreciation. However, precisely because these programmes have been running for nearly a decade, it is time for the Indonesian government to conduct a comprehensive policy audit of all foreign assistance in the education sector. The audit is not intended to find fault or build anti-foreign sentiment, but to ensure that all forms of cooperation truly provide strategic benefits for Indonesia’s national interests. The fundamental question is simple: after nearly ten years of various donor programmes, has the quality of Indonesian education improved significantly? Have the literacy and numeracy skills of Indonesian children made a real leap? Has the capacity of local governments truly become more independent? Do the innovations introduced remain alive after donor funding ends, or do most innovations stop when the project finishes? These questions deserve to be answered through an independent national evaluation. In international relations, no aid is truly free of interest. Development assistance is a legitimate part of diplomacy for every country. Therefore, the Indonesian government must place every donor programme within the framework of national interest. The direction of Indonesia’s educational development must not be slowly influenced more by the development priorities of donor countries than by the nation’s own strategic needs. This vigilance should not only be directed at the presence of foreign technical advisors. A more complex challenge arises when programme implementation fully uses Indonesian professionals, but the programme design, success indicators, research methodology, and policy recommendations are structured based on the donor agency’s framework. In such a situation, the programme’s face appears entirely ‘Indonesian’, but its substantive orientation may better reflect the interests of the funding party. This assertion is not a form of suspicion towards Indonesian professionals working in various international programmes. Many of them are the nation’s best academics, researchers, and practitioners with high integrity. However, the state still needs a mechanism to ensure that every policy product born from international aid programmes has truly passed through a filtering process based on national interest. Loyalty to the nation must always be above loyalty to the project. The government also needs to evaluate all policy recommendations produced during nearly ten years of these programmes. How many recommendations have been adopted by the government? Which ones have proven effective? Which ones have failed? Which ones have produced long-term impact? And no less important, are there policies that turned out to be less suitable for the social, cultural, and educational system characteristics of Indonesia? Such an audit is a healthy governance practice. A sovereign state not only receives aid but also has the ability to evaluate the benefits of every aid it receives. The evaluation also needs to cover the institutional aspect. So far, various donor programmes have heavily involved international consulting firms, non-governmental organisations, universities, and national consultants. The government needs to map whether this pattern has resulted in knowledge transfer to state apparatus or has instead created new dependencies on external consultants. The success of a programme should be measured by the strengthening capacity of ministries, local governments, and schools to work independently, not by increasing dependence on project assistance. Another equally important matter is the governance of educational data. In the digital era, data is a strategic state asset. Data on students, teachers, assessments, schools, and learning outcomes holds immense value for policy formulation.