Prabowo criticizes Indonesia's PISA score, still lagging behind Malaysia and Vietnam

President Prabowo Subianto (Photo: Presidential Press and Media Bureau)

JAKARTA - President Prabowo Subianto admitted that the quality of Indonesian education has not shown encouraging results in the PISA survey. Indonesia's reading score is said to still be below a number of Southeast Asian countries.

Prabowo conveyed this when receiving BRIN Head Arif Satria and researchers at the Presidential Palace Complex, Thursday, August 6.

According to Prabowo, Indonesia's reading score is only slightly above the Philippines. Indonesia is still below Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, the average OECD country, Japan, and Singapore.

"We are not too good," said Prabowo.

PISA is an international survey that measures students' ability in reading, mathematics, and science.

Prabowo admitted that comparisons with other countries were not always simple. Indonesia has a large area, thousands of islands, and schools spread to mountains and remote areas.

He said the number of schools in Indonesia was around 388,000, although he asked the figure to be checked again.

According to Prabowo, the challenges of the Indonesian Minister of Education cannot be equated with Singapore which has only one city.

"Singapore is okay, it works. One city. The Minister of Education just goes around all of Singapore, maybe two hours he can check almost all the schools," he said.

Prabowo gave an example of the difficulty of monitoring schools in Miangas as well as remote islands in North Maluku and North Sulawesi.

However, the magnitude of the challenge should not be an excuse to let the lag.

"Our difficulties are very big. This should not be an excuse that we do not need to catch up," said Prabowo.

He asked that the survey results be accepted as a correction material, then used to find ways to improve the quality of education.

Prabowo assessed that education is the basis for producing innovations, discoveries, and patents. Therefore, the government wants to increase investment in the next generation's education.