Tri Mutualism: Quality Education, Excellent Human Resources, and Sustainable Economic Development

One of the important pillars of the 17 sustainable development goals declared by the United Nations (UN) at the UN General Assembly in September 2015 is the realization of quality education. As a sovereign nation with a vision of becoming a developed country, Indonesia's constitution has explicitly stipulated that 20 percent of the state budget must be spent on the education sector. Unfortunately, this only reaches the budgeting level, with the Indonesian Parliament as the budgeting authority formally allocating 20 percent of state expenditure to the education sector. However, in practice, the education budget that has been prepared by the House of Representatives is distributed to many Ministries / Institutions, aka not focused on being managed by the Ministry of Education, Culture Research and Technology as the leading sector responsible for the back and forth of Indonesian education.

For example, according to data for the 2024 budget year as explained by the Secretary General of the Ministry of Education and Culture, Suharti, in a working meeting with Commission X of the House of Representatives in May 2024, it was revealed that of the education budget of Rp665.02 trillion, the Ministry of Education and Culture manages only 15 percent of the education function budget, which amounts to 98.99 trillion. The rest as much as RRp341.56 trillion or 52 percent for transfer funds to regions and village funds, as much as Rp77 trillion or 12 percent for financing expenditures, as much as Rp62.3 trillion for the Ministry of Religion, 32.85 trillion or 5 percent for other Ministries / institutions, as much as Rp47.31 trillion or 7 percent is used for non-Ministry / institution education spending.

Source: coordinating ministry for human development and culture

This fact can at least provide an understanding that it turns out that the Indonesian education budget is nominally quite large, however, in its implementation which is purely managed for the education sector of Early Childhood Education, Primary and Secondary Education to Higher Education under the auspices of the Ministry of Research and Technology is only part of it (15 percent of the total education budget), aka not fully managed by the Ministry of Research and Technology. The impact of this policy is that the Ministry of Research and Technology often feels budget shortages in executing programs to promote Indonesian education and sometimes even has to take unpopular policies such as increasing the Single Tuition Fee (UKT) to anticipate the burden of the education budget deficit. A factual condition that must be well understood by all children of the nation so that this problem then gets a wise solution. Does this formula need to be maintained or is it better? In the author's view, it would be more ideal if the education budget was fully managed by the Ministry of Education and Culture. However, it seems that this idealism will not be realized because the education sector is apparently not only the absolute responsibility of Kemendikbudristek, but also the domain of other ministries.

Over the past five years, the author observes that the government has actually made many big leaps in accelerating the transformation of Indonesian education from what previously seemed to be running in place, lagging far behind the quality of education in neighboring countries to catching up and catching up. Several positive breakthroughs such as the Merdeka Belajar Kampus Merdeka (MBKM) program, the implementation of the Merdeka Curriculum which emphasizes literacy, numeracy, strengthening character and providing true independence for Indonesian students to learn to explore themselves according to their interests and inclinations have a positive correlation with the improvement of Indonesia's educational achievements when viewed from international measuring instruments such as the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). As a result, Indonesia's PISA ranking in 2022 is in 66th position out of 81 countries, up 5 ranks compared to Indonesia's ranking in PISA 2018 which is in 72nd position out of 79 countries.

Behind the improvement of Indonesia's PISA ranking, there is a big homework that must be completed by the government and all education stakeholders without exception. Referring to data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) as of August 2023, there are 9.9 million Generation Z (aged 15-24 years) who are unemployed or not currently attending education, not working, and not attending training. This condition seems anomalous with the spirit of the government, which wants to make the productive age population competitive and ready to welcome the future of Indonesia with a myriad of positive creativity. In addition, the data released by the Director General of Dukcapil of the Ministry of Home Affairs in 2022 shows that the ratio of Indonesian citizens who have S2─S3 education out of the total productive population aged 15-64 years is around 0.45 percent or if you look at the numbers based on the data from the Director General of Dukcapil of the Ministry of Home Affairs in 2022, 855,757 Indonesians graduated from S2 (0.31 percent) and 61,271 Indonesians graduated from S3 (0.02 percent).

This reality clearly shows that Indonesia's human resources when viewed from the indicator of the number of citizens with master's and doctoral degrees are very alarming, especially when compared to other countries such as Malaysia, Vietnam where the ratio of their population with S2─S3 education is already at 2.43 percent. To become a developed country with 7 percent economic growth, Indonesia must have skilled, knowledgeable and highly educated human resources. Indonesia's lagging behind in terms of human resources with master's degree qualifications and the large number of unemployed people of productive age must be addressed seriously by the state so that the vision of president-elect Prabowo Subianto, who is determined to bring Indonesia's economy to 8 percent growth within three years of his leadership, can be realized.

There is no other way for Indonesia to grow the national economy on par with the economic growth of developed countries except to massively boost human resource development. Education and training is an important key to Indonesia's economic progress. With education and training, Indonesian people become educated, knowledgeable, have life skills, and have a decent income.

Without good education and training, without superior quality human resources, it is impossible for Indonesia to raise the economic growth rate as high as a flying garuda. So sending as many of the nation's children as possible to study master's and doctoral levels both at home and abroad is a necessity for Indonesia's progress. So far, the country already has an Education Fund Management Institution (LPDP) that is responsible for providing scholarships for S2─S3 lectures for selected Indonesian citizens. However, the quota is still limited.

The author hopes that the LPDP scholarship allotment needs to be increased and multiplied so that Indonesian human resources are more competitive. The more Indonesians who become masters and doctors, the more opportunities for Indonesia's economic progress. In addition to encouraging citizens to pursue higher education at the master and doctoral levels through the LPDP, the state must also have the courage to provide training that has a measurable impact on productive citizens based on their interests so that they can be absorbed by the industrial sector so that open unemployment can be reduced. The link and match program for vocational students through the SMK Center of Excellence program, the Industrial World Business World (DUDI) and university students through the Internship and Independent Study Program of the Merdeka Campus, which has been running so far, must be further encouraged and expanded. The Ministry of Education and Culture with all its good initiatives must be appreciated and can be adopted by other agencies such as the Ministry of Manpower, Ministry of Social Affairs in terms of empowering the unemployed through facilitating training programs that open up access to expertise, skills, and independence.

Economic progress will only be achieved if a country's human resources are qualified, skilled and equitable. We hope that in the next 5─10, the ratio of the number of Indonesian people with S2─S3 education to the total population of productive age will be above 1 percent, thankfully reaching 2 percent. The author also hopes that in the next few years, Indonesian humans will be born who are skilled, competitive, and independent. The author believes that if this happens, the impact will be very powerful on Indonesia's economic future. Moreover, in 2030 Indonesia will enter the peak of demographic bonus where the number of productive age population (15─64 years old) becomes the majority of the total population of Indonesia.

The author believes that the existence of educated and skilled human resources who have been facilitated by the state will be able to play an active role in contributing their expertise in efforts to build the nation's glory, especially in the economic, educational, social and other sectors. The state should not hesitate to invest massively in human development. Moreover, in the vision of Indonesia Emas 2045, it is clearly written that the pillars are mastery of science and technology, sustainable economic development, equitable development, strengthening national resilience and governance. To execute these four pillars, the country absolutely needs skilled, competent and characterized human resources.

As for the sustainable economic development sector, the presence of human resources with S2─S3 education in the author's opinion will greatly help accelerate the realization of targets in this field. Qualified human resources formed with the help of the state can be empowered to participate in creating the country's expectations both by innovating, opening new jobs, and providing other positive support for the creation of Indonesia's sustainable economic development. The presence of quality human resources will greatly support the nation's economic growth targets without having to ignore environmental sustainability. The biggest challenge of Indonesia's economic development, which is currently targeting the downstream of extractive mining goods such as nickel, bauxite, lithium, gold, and other mining goods, is the preservation of the environment and the surrounding nature.

The more mined, natural resources do bring economic benefits, cutting unemployment, creating new jobs, reducing poverty. However, if mining economic activities are carried out blindly without considering the environmental impacts that will be caused, then the impact is very destructive so that economic development activities are not sustainable because the target is only short-term to meet current needs without thinking about the needs of future generations.  Realizing this, the author believes that if the country already has many quality human resources printed with state money, the state must empower them to ensure that Indonesia's economic development activities on the one hand go according to plan and on the other hand nature and the environment are maintained and sustainable.

The state should not be anti-intellectual, involve the educated people who are financed by the state for the greatest benefit of the country. Listen to their suggestions and input so that Indonesia grows economically and protects the environment. That way, all parties are won, the current generation benefits from the rapid growth of Indonesia's economic growth and future generations are also benefited because natural resources and environmental sustainability are maintained. Hopefully!