Safeguarding the Nation's Educational Compass

Jakarta (ANTARA) - Although the government has good intentions to align the pulse of higher education (PT) with the pragmatic mechanics of the global job market by closing various study programmes (prodi) that teach the “eternity of values”, such as philosophy, physics, education, and history, there is an existential risk that may arise from this policy. This synchronisation effort will erode this nation’s “ideological immunity” in the face of asymmetric hegemony waves in contemporary global conflict dynamics. It is in this context that we need to safeguard the Indonesian nation’s educational compass. The Ministry of Higher Education, Science, and Technology (Kemendiktisaintek) recently conveyed the urgency for PT to conduct strict curation, up to the closure of prodi deemed not aligned with industry needs. This narrative emerged in relation to concerns over “surplus graduates”, particularly in education and social-humanities (soshum) fields, which are considered to exceed market capacity. The helm of education must be steered massively to supply the technical needs of the industrial world; in mining, medicine, or technology sectors. For the government, Indonesia is like a large ship charging quickly to catch up with its lag in the ocean of global progress. Indonesia must be directed to become a precise part in that global industrial ecosystem, by urging authorities to accelerate the spin of the education turbine, through transforming classrooms into production laboratories for ready-to-use labour. Red Queen Anomaly Currently, our education world is trapped in what is known in evolutionary biology as the Red Queen Hypothesis. A condition that forces its exponents—teachers, students, and regulations—to run as fast as possible just to stay in the same place. Therefore, the linear obsession of Kemendiktisaintek in chasing industry seems absurd when applied to domestic PT, especially when synchronising curriculum cycles and industrial innovation cycles. If that obsession is implemented, then in the curriculum cycle and undergraduate study period at Indonesian PT, a relatively long cumulative time is required; starting from creating a new curriculum (1-2 years), plus the graduation period of 4-5 years. Meanwhile, “Moore’s Law”—unlimited cheap device advancements—and the revolution of imitative intelligence (Generative AI) change the face of technology every six to twelve months, potentially faster in the future. This reality stimulates the moment when a prospective graduate enters a trending “Technology X” prodi, but when he graduates from PT, that rising technology may already have been replaced by the latest “Y” technology. Thus, when technology “X” is disrupted and replaced by new innovations, the graduates educated with this narrow curriculum instantly lose their relevance to the industrial world for which they were prepared. They might become “industrial waste”. Even more so when at the same time, they lack a foundation of reasoning that transcends technical procedures. So it’s no wonder if our graduates end up as nothing more than screws in a large machine that wear out easily and are replaced. They ultimately lose their dignity as subjects driving change in this country.