When the World Recognises Rumah Pendidikan: From Schooling to Learning
When I first witnessed the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Prizes competition in Geneva, Switzerland, in 2012, Indonesia did not have a single nomination, let alone a winner. The event, organised by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations body for telecommunications and information technology, felt so distant from Indonesia at the time. Fourteen years later, on Thursday (9/7), I watched as the name Rumah Pendidikan was announced as the Winner of the WSIS Prizes 2026 in the e-government category. One thing I reflected upon is that what has truly gained world recognition is not merely a digital education platform. The world is acknowledging an idea: that technology can be a bridge for equalising access and quality of education while contributing to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It is a simple idea: technology must provide equal learning opportunities for every Indonesian child, while also giving teachers space to continuously learn and improve their competence.
For years, digital transformation was often measured by the number of applications built, the size of the budget invested, or the sophistication of the technology used. Yet, the true measure of successful digital transformation is much simpler: can technology make people’s lives better and easier? In education, the question becomes more fundamental. Can technology enable a child on an outermost island to have the same learning opportunities as a child in a big city? Does a teacher in a disadvantaged area have equal access to competency development as a teacher in an urban area? These questions gave birth to Rumah Pendidikan: an ecosystem designed to meet the needs of teachers, students, parents, schools, local governments, and all education stakeholders within a single shared ecosystem.
Indonesia is an archipelagic nation with over 17,000 islands stretching from Sabang to Merauke. This geographical diversity is a national strength, but it also presents a major challenge in equalising education. For decades, the state has continuously built schools, improved teacher competence, and expanded access to education. However, in the digital era, a new challenge emerged. Educational services developed rapidly but were scattered across many standalone applications. Teachers had to open various platforms for different needs. School principals accessed different systems. Parents and students were often confused about finding the educational services they required. Digitalisation was underway, but the user experience was not yet fully simple, integrated, and centred on user needs.
At the start of his leadership of the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, Professor Abdul Mu’ti introduced the term Rumah Pendidikan. The choice of the word ‘rumah’ (home) was not coincidental. A home is not a place that makes it difficult for people to come. A home is a place where everyone feels accepted, grows, and receives support. A home makes it easy for anyone to come, learn, return when needed. This philosophy feels very relevant as education enters the digital age. Technology should make services closer, not more complicated. This philosophy was then translated into the RAMAH work culture—responsive, accountable, serving, adaptive, and harmonious—which became the foundation of the ministry’s public service.
The concept of ‘home’ then evolved into a new way of building a digital education ecosystem. It is not just about providing an application, but about creating a collaborative space that connects teachers, students, parents, schools, local governments, and various education partners in one ecosystem. This idea also aligns with President Prabowo Subianto’s vision that every Indonesian child should receive the same quality of education and learning resources through the use of technology. That statement essentially speaks of justice. Technology is not the end goal, but a tool to ensure that a child’s birthplace does not determine the quality of education they receive.
Rumah Pendidikan (rumah.pendidikan.go.id) has since developed not merely as a super app, but as a national learning ecosystem. Currently, 66 educational services are integrated and utilised by more than 6.9 million users. The platform has been visited over 67 million times. Together with more than 50 strategic partners, Rumah Pendidikan provides thousands of digital learning materials for teachers and students. More encouragingly, over 104,000 teachers in disadvantaged, frontier, and outermost (3T) regions have utilised Rumah Pendidikan to improve the quality of learning. Meanwhile, 339,000 education units across 513 districts/cities use the Education Report Card as a basis for data-driven planning. Digital transformation no longer stops at the digitalisation of services, but has begun to change how schools make decisions, teachers learn, and students gain learning experiences.
In my view, the most important change is not in the technology itself, but in the way we view education. We have long been more familiar with the concept of schooling. Education is synonymous with the school as an institution. Learning begins when the bell rings and ends when the student goes home. Rumah Pendidikan invites us to view education differently: shifting from schooling to learning. Schooling speaks of institutions. Learning speaks of people. Schooling has limits of space and time. Learning allows everyone to grow without limits.