Digital The Innovation for School Children

While literacy rates have been steadily increasing in

Indonesia in the current millennium, digitization

presents a new future for education. Law no. 20 of

the National Education System, passed in 2003,

stipulates a nine-year compulsory basic education

(six years of primary and three years of junior

secondary education) for all citizens of Indonesia

aged 7-15years and has helped increase enrollment

in Indonesian schools1 . Furthermore, this law also

requires central and local governments to allocate a

minimum of twenty per cent of their budget to

education2 . This drastically improved school

enrollment of 15-year-olds in Indonesia from 46 per

cent in 2001 to 85 per cent in 2018 3 . However,

despite these efforts, according to the Central

Bureau of Statistics Report of 2015, an overall

estimated 4.4 million children and adolescents

aged 7–18 years are still out of school4 . As of an

Oxfam Report from 20175 , only 55 per cent of

children from poor families are enrolled in

secondary school, highlighting that these efforts

have still left out a significant number of young

Indonesians.

In parallel, there is increasing digitisation and

device availability across the archipelago. As the

internet becomes cheaper and more widely

available, giving more regular access, digital

education becomes increasingly pertinent and

advantageous to school-based learning. While

subjects involving information and communication

1 The World Bank, I ndonesia Public Expenditure Review: Spending for

Better Results, The World Bank Group, Ministry of Finance

Republic of Indonesia, European Union, Swiss Confederation and

Australian Government, 2020.

2 J asmina, T ., ‘ The Role of Government Spending on Basic

Education at the District Level in Indonesia’, 2007, p. 1-18.

3Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development,

Bridging the Digital Gender Divide: Include, Upskill, Innovate,, OECD,

2018.

4 UNICEF Indonesia, ‘ Education and adolescents’ ,

OXFAM

Briefing Paper, Kilimani, February 2017.

technology (ICT) first appeared in school syllabi in

2006, the internet itself has equally become the

means of delivering quality education opportunities

to millions of students across the country. Though

ICT was removed as a subject from the national

curriculum in 2014, the government, having realised

the importance of ICT, encouraged schools to

conduct education processes within an ‘ IT

environment’, allowing students in schools to use

computers and conduct online research inside the

classroom.

https://www.unicef.org/indonesia/education-and-adolescents>.

5 OXFAM International, ‘ Towards a more Equal Indonesia’,