Compete With Google Classroom, Kominfo-Ministry Of Religion Develops Independent Learning Applications

Photo: Doc. Ministry of Religion

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Religion and the Ministry of Communication and Information (Kemenkominfo) are building a platform for madrasa students throughout Indonesia. The integrated learning application is named Mandiri Learning which was officially launched today, Friday 8 April by Minister of Religion Yaqut Cholil Qoumas and representatives from the Ministry of Communication and Information.

The presence of this platform is expected to be able to answer the learning needs of students to be able to hone their competence through meaningful learning in every madrasah education unit.

"Through madrasas, we are determined to be able to open access to educational services that are easily accessible to all children of the nation," Yaqut said at the launch at the Ministry of Religion Office.

Yaqut said this platform had been designed for two years together with the Ministry of Communication and Informatics. Mandiri Learning is targeted to be able to support the national achievement of implementing an independent curriculum in madrasas.

The Ministry of Religion, continued Yaqut, continues to make maximum efforts to be able to integrate the independent curriculum with the characteristics of madrasas so that the main concepts in the independent curriculum can be realized. But on the other hand, the peculiarities and values of the madrasa can continue to be maintained in the midst of the progress of the times.

"We always try to prepare madrasa students to be able to face the challenges of the future brightly and with hope," he said.

In the same place, Senior Client Partner-Indonesia from Tata Consultancy Services Durga Prasad Uppu said that in order to realize Digitalization in the field of Education and support the programs of the Ministry of Communication and Information and the Ministry of Religion of the Republic of Indonesia, TCS is here to realize the availability of an Online Learning Platform.

"This can be accessed from anywhere without limits. This cloud-based system is able to provide a space for interaction between teachers and students like a Virtual School. TCS is always committed to supporting the Government's efforts in terms of technology and information renewal towards the digitalization era," he said.

Meanwhile, according to the Minister of Communications and Informatics Johnny G Plate, the Mandiri Learning platform is a concrete effort to transform digital-based education in Indonesia aimed at supporting the implementation of an independent curriculum in madrasas under the auspices of the Ministry of Religion.

"Kominfo, we will provide support, assistance, and technical guidance on information and technology as needed," said Johnny in a virtual speech.

Kominfo provides support for the organizers and implementation of the application, as well as the necessary repairs later. In particular, Kominfo will also provide central data storage capacity or government cloud to provide the implementation of this application for the independent curriculum of madrasas.

Meanwhile, the Director General of Islamic Education (Dirjen Pendis) of the Ministry of Religion Muhammad Ali Ramdhani, said that this platform complements the repertoire of face-to-face learning processes with an independent learning process or what is commonly called independent learning.

And the process on this platform goes hand in hand with the future learning process.

"When the various luxuries of information that will be presented in the learning process must be able to be captured by our learning process," explained Muhammad.