Ki Hajar Dewantara Becomes Indonesia's First Education Minister In History Today, 19 August 1945

JAKARTA History today, 79 years ago, August 19, 1945, President Soekarno appointed Ki Hajar Dewantara as the first Minister of Teaching (now: Minister of Education). The election was because the capacity of the Dewantara was considered complete.

Dewantara understands properly that education is a means of freeing and getting out of ignorance. Previously, Dewantara had changed the course of his struggle. In the past, when he chose the path of radical politics. Recently, Dewantara felt confident that the struggle through education could echo bigger for Indonesia's independence.

Ki Hajar Dewantara's struggle to escape the shackles of full liquefaction colonialism. The man who was originally known as Soewardi Soerjaningrat was often impulsive. He hated colonialism. He did not want white people to live demeaning the fate of the bumiputras.

This condition makes it often challenging to fight Sinyo and the Dutch child. His sensitivity to nestapa colonialism is increasingly open through education. He initially entered the Bumiputra Doctor's School of Education (STOVIA). However, he was not serious about STOVIA.

Instead, he lives as a journalist and participates in the movement. Two things he considered much more challenging. He used his talent as a journalist in perpetuating criticism of colonialism. He joined the Koran of De Express's struggle in 1912.

Soewardi also together with his colleagues Tjipto Mangoenkoesoemo and Ernest Douwes Dekker in the same year founded a phenomenal party. Indische Partij (Indies Party), his name. The three were then nicknamed Tiga Serangkai (Triumvirati).

The combination of the three Indonesian freedom fighters is increasingly troubling the Dutch. Every day they often disturbed the minds of the natives to fight and oppose the Dutch power. The Dutch also chose to imprison and exile the three of them to the Netherlands in 1913.

Soewardi, who is known to be radical, began trying to open a wider horizon of mind in the Netherlands. He saw that politics was indeed a journey of struggle. However, he saw that the Dutch actually maintained ignorance. An option to educate the nation's children was also carried out.

He was exiled five years to the Netherlands and returned to the Dutch East Indies (now: Indonesia) in 1919. However, he has become another person: Ki Hajar Dewantara and is no longer Soewardi. He founded Taman Siswa and built an aru system in the classroom with an ideological basis of extrinsity and guidance," wrote Takashi Shiraishi in the book 1000 Years of the Archipelago (2000).

Ki Hajar Dewantara also founded a Taman Siswa College in 1922. The idea is human trafficking personally and rooted in culture. The education is also open to western culture. The combination is able to bring a positive influence to the forerunners of national education development.

This existence has been studied further by national figures after Indonesia's independence. Soekarno also received input and learned of the existence of Ki Hajar Dewantara in the world of education. Bung Karno then did not hesitate to appoint Dewantara because of the teaching minister on August 19, 1945.

Dewantara's leadership made an impression. He immediately organized education and teaching in Indonesia. He began to prepare regulations from kindergarten to college. He immediately formulated a mission to reduce illiteracy in the archipelago.

"The realization of the post-independence education system in bureaucratic institutions, Ki Hajar Dewantara on August 19, 1945 was asked to be the first Minister of Education, teaching, and culture for the sake of Indonesian education," said Indra Jaya Kusuma Wardhana in the book Historiography of Indonesian education (2023).