"We are starting with digitalization of education. This is a very historical moment where now, more than 71 thousand formal schools have received ICT assistance," Makarim noted in a joint meeting with Commission X of the Indonesian House of Representatives (DPR RI) in Jakarta.
Those schools received assistance of 1,253,074 ICT devices, in the form of laptops, projectors, and others, to support the school's digitization program, Makarim remarked.
The minister noted that the ministry's budget as well as the Physical Special Allocation Fund (DAK) were utilized for providing ICT devices to those schools.
The ministry also provides four digital education platforms for free: the Independent Teaching Platform, Independent Campus Platform, School Resources Platform, and Education Report Card Profile Platform and Data and Infrastructure Management.
He noted that more than 2.08 million teachers from 150,731 schools have logged in and implemented the Independent Teaching Platform until the end of 2022.
Apart from the Independent Teaching Platform, the School Activity Plan and Budget Application (ARKAS) has also been downloaded and implemented by 217 thousand, or 99 percent of active education institutions.
Makarim explained that the ARKAS had succeeded in assisting school principals to plan their budgets, as the Rp54.7-trillion potential of the 2022 School Operational Assistance (BOS) budget was recorded transparently in this application.
In addition, the ministry developed SIPLah, an e-commerce application for spending BOS funds, that had been used by 230,515 educational units, with Rp11.2 trillion of BOS funds spent through it.
The SIPLah application has been able to connect 178,105 goods and service providers with 18 SIPLah e-commerce partners, with 11 million available products.
“We hear a lot of aspirations about higher prices from other online sites. We will be very careful to solve this problem. If there is a price difference, we contact the vendor to make the price remain competitive," Makarim stated.
The latest application developed by the ministry to digitize schools is TanyaBOS, which currently has 16,456 active visitors asking questions on the forum, with 5,315 topics being broadcast.
He added that currently 508 out of 514 districts and cities have participated in the Mobilization School Program, with 14,239 schools partaking in this program.
"They are schools that we monitor directly from the center to help in spreading the Independent Curriculum. We want the school principals to understand the transformation of independent learning," Makarim emphasized.
The minister remarked that the Independent Curriculum has been implemented by 156,937 schools, with 56,457 teachers participating as initiator teachers.
Apart from the digital side, the ministry also distributed 16,868,247 copies of books to 57,087 educational units, both in underdeveloped, frontier, and outermost (3T) and non-3T areas in 554 districts and cities in Indonesia.
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Translator: Astrid Faidlatul H, Resinta S
Editor: Anton Santoso
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