Advancing STEM Education in Indonesia: Strategies for Impactful Higher Education
Contributor & Photo by: Virda Lalitya Umam
The last few years have witnessed a surge in technological advancements, among them augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR), next-generation connectivity (5G), and, most notably, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. This growth, in turn, has had a massive, multisectoral impact on a global scale, including Indonesia, prompting governments to adapt to this era of technology. Despite that, the Ministry of National Development Planning (Bappenas) once reported that in 2023, STEM graduates made up only 18.47% of all higher education graduates in Indonesia. This number is still significantly lower than that of our neighboring countries, such as Malaysia (37.19%), Singapore (34.30%), and India (31.41%).
With these issues at hand and an upcoming semester to plan, on September 3, 2025, the Faculty of Education once again held a Semester Preparation Workshop as a means to synergize future teaching activities and gain insights into various topics surrounding education. This opportunity saw Prof. Ahmad Najib Burhani, PhD, Director General of Science and Technology at the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, and Technology, as the speaker. His presentation, titled Policies on Science and Technology in Indonesian Higher Education, explores how the push for STEM education and its supporting policies embody impactful higher education.
Kicking off the workshop, Prof. Burhani identified problems regarding STEM education in Indonesia, ranging from unequal quality and unintegrated curricula to the lack of trained educators and interest, as well as of literacy. The strategies laid out by the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, and Technology boil down to three points: building scientific culture, scientific temper, and scientific solutions. These strategies would then be incorporated into STEM education and implemented in real-world practices.
From a helicopter view, the current paradigm of STEM applications in Indonesia differs quite strikingly from the past. In the late 20th century up to the post-Reformation era, the government focused on high-tech, with notable inventions such as the Palapa satellites and the N250 Gatotkaca airplane coming to mind. In the 2010s, the attention shifted to public transportation, highway construction, and other public infrastructures. Now, as revealed by Prof. Burhani, the government mainly has eyes on eight priority programs known as Asta Cita—food security, energy, defense, digitalization, health, industrialization, maritime, and manufacturing—with emphasis on improving and optimizing the technology we already have.
From Prof. Burhani, we identify three main subjects of sci-tech policies by the Directorate General of Science and Technology: students, as recipients and users of STEM knowledge; teachers, as implementers of transformative education strategies, and; dissemination of science, from basic scientific literacy, to the public understanding of science, and the end goal of public engagement with science and technology. Additionally, another notable adjustment the government has made is the reallocation of education endowment funds (LPDP), allotting 80% for STEM research, scholarships, and education starting in 2026. Of course, exceptions are made, particularly for underdeveloped areas with more urgent priorities, of which a moratorium is implemented.
Looking at the big picture, if Indonesia, at one point, crafted satellites and planes, does this mean we experienced a technological downgrade since then? According to Prof. Burhani, this isn’t necessarily the case. As previously mentioned, while the focus of high-tech breakthroughs is no longer the limelight, science and technology are fundamentally expressions of culture—the two are not separable. To place greater care and attention toward existing tech does not necessarily mean forsaking modern creativity. Around us, we can also find various micro-level inventions emerging on the regular, coined as ethnotechnology, which he drew parallels with basic and applied research: applied research is only ever possible if we have the nitty-gritty, basic research in place. To quote Prof. Burhani, the highest technological achievements would bear little significance if the people cannot understand their value or feel their benefits.
Now, what does all this mean for higher education institutions in Indonesia? What can we do to not fall behind, especially in STEM-based fields? For starters, strengthen research related to fields that Indonesia is a home to and aren’t far-fetched from our vicinity (e.g., tropical medicine, biodiversity, oceanography, etc). Additionally, based on our recent FGD, a single institution does not need to specialize in every field and its concentrations; instead, it can focus on specific areas of expertise unique to the region, while collaborating with other institutions to provide comprehensive education and research. Most importantly, how we communicate and disseminate knowledge is crucial to grow public interest and broaden access to science, or as Prof. Burhani puts it, to become a friend to science.
