Tutik Rachmawati, PhD holds a bachelor’s degree in public administration from Gadjah Mada University, a master’s degree in development studies from the Institute of Social Studies Erasmus University The Netherlands and a Ph.D. degree in Local Government Studies from Birmingham University United Kingdom. After completing her position as the Head of Public Administration Department, Parahyangan Catholic University from 2014-2020, she is now the director of the Center for Public Policy and Management Studies (CPMS). She is a research fellow in the Center of Excellence in Small and Medium Enterprise Development Parahyangan Catholic. She has won several fellowships such as STUNED – the Netherlands Government, Japan-Indonesian Presidential Scholarship (JIPS), Summer University – Central European University, IATSS Japan and Mesopartner-Germany. She is an active member of the Indonesian Association of Public Administration (IAPA). She is an active reviewer for both national and international academic journals such as Sustinere: Journal of Environment and Sustainability and Jurnal Ilmu Administrasi – Lembaga Administrasi Negara, Commonwealth Journal of Local Governance. She has done research and published articles in national and international journals and popular media on the topics of public management, public ethic, Information Communication & Technology for public administration, development studies, public entrepreneurship and local economic development. She is currently conducting research on Public Procurement Governance particularly looking at how socially responsible public procurement can improve governance. This research is fully funded by Kemenristek/BRIN under the NUSANTARA-BOPTN-SAME scheme.
Harnessing the Awakening Force of Change: the Barriers to Distance Online Learning and Alternatives Responses
The greatest challenge for any organization is change and adapting to change. Any changes will create resistance. This is true, particularly for the government as its form of organization is bureaucracy. However, COVID-19 Pandemic has become the awakening force for the government to make changes. For any government in the world, a change starts with a policy.
In Indonesia, the quality of education has been heavily criticized as a failure. The general public’s view is that education policies are swiftly changed whenever a new ministry appointed. However, a new ministry issuing new policies does not necessarily mean a better quality of education. This is regarded as the absence of a clear long term plan to achieve high-quality human resources in Indonesia. In response to pandemic COVID-19, Joko Widodo, the President of Indonesia gave a national address on the COVID-19 outbreak. He called all Indonesians to ‘work from home, learn from home, and worship at home’. Following this presidential call, the Ministry of Education and Culture scrapped the nationwide exam dreaded by students across the country. Many had called for this national exam to end, before, but in vain. This is only one of many decisions (or policies) resulting from the COVID 19 Pandemic. Distance Online Learning at every level of education has been initiated in Indonesia. However, there are many barriers to the implementation of online learning. The main challenge is overcoming the geographical spread of Indonesia. Indonesia consists of more than seventeen thousand islands covering not only very large and densely populated islands but also other small and uninhabited islands. This has worsened the digital divide and impeded online learning.
In this paper, I will discuss the government policies of Indonesia in education in general and also in vocational education and training as the response to COVID-19 Pandemic. This will then be followed by a discussion on the barriers for implementation of these policies and what initiatives have been taken to overcome these barriers from the government and also other actors.