By: Dr. Aries Musnandar
By: Dr. Aries MusnandarMore than two decades have passed since the Institute of Teacher Training and Education (Institut Keguruan dan Ilmu Pendidikan – IKIP) was transformed into a comprehensive university under the banner of an expanded mandate. Yet what was presented as an institutional advancement may, in retrospect, represent a narrowing of educational vision.
By reducing IKIP to the status of Lembaga Pendidikan Tenaga Kependidikan (LPTK), Indonesia has implicitly redefined education as primarily a matter of schooling and teacher production. This shift is more than administrative; it reflects an epistemological reduction of educational science itself.
Historically, IKIP was never intended merely to function as a teacher-training institution. It was conceived as a center for the development of learning sciences—a field concerned with understanding how individuals, organizations, and societies learn, adapt, and transform. In this broader conception, educational science is not simply about classrooms; it is about designing the learning architecture that underpins human and national development.
Today, that broader mandate has largely disappeared from public policy discourse.
When Education Is Reduced to Schooling
One of the most persistent misconceptions in Indonesian education policy is the tendency to equate education with schooling and learning with classroom instruction. While administratively convenient, this assumption has produced a system that is structurally organized yet conceptually limited.
In reality, some of the most intensive and consequential learning processes occur outside formal educational institutions—particularly within workplaces and professional environments. Corporations, industries, and public organizations have evolved into sophisticated learning ecosystems where competency development is directly linked to organizational performance.
Practices such as training needs analysis, competency-based curriculum design, instructional systems design, learning evaluation, and performance improvement are not merely theoretical concepts. They are operational necessities.
Ironically, many of these practices—rooted fundamentally in educational science—have flourished more successfully in industry than within educational institutions themselves.
My experience spanning more than two decades in multinational corporations provides a clear empirical lesson: the foundation of organizational competitiveness is not merely capital, technology, or infrastructure. It is the capacity to design, manage, and continuously improve human learning systems.
From competency mapping and instructional design to performance technology and organizational learning, corporations apply educational principles with a rigor that often surpasses what is found in many academic environments. Yet public policy rarely recognizes a simple but crucial reality: industry is education in action.
The Displacement of Educational Science
The marginalization of educational science has produced consequences that extend far beyond universities and schools.
Many public policies appear sophisticated at the conceptual level but struggle during implementation. The reason is often epistemological rather than administrative. Policies are commonly designed through linear, technocratic frameworks that treat human development as a mechanical process consisting of inputs, outputs, and outcomes.
Learning, however, does not operate mechanically.
Learning is complex, adaptive, contextual, and profoundly human. Individuals and organizations do not change merely because information is delivered. Transformation requires carefully designed learning environments, feedback mechanisms, social interactions, and opportunities for practice.
Without a strong foundation in learning sciences, policy interventions become detached from the realities of human behavior. Programs multiply, budgets expand, and regulations proliferate, yet meaningful transformation remains elusive. What is often missing is not effort, but a robust understanding of how learning actually occurs.
Reclaiming Pedagogical Authority in Higher Education
The consequences of this epistemic gap are particularly visible in higher education.
Across universities, Indonesia is home to highly accomplished engineers, physicians, lawyers, economists, and scientists. Their mastery of disciplinary knowledge is beyond question. Yet many struggle to facilitate meaningful learning experiences for students.
This is not a reflection of individual shortcomings. It is a systemic problem.
Subject-matter expertise does not automatically translate into pedagogical competence. Effective teaching requires knowledge of instructional design, assessment, learner engagement, educational psychology, and curriculum development—competencies that belong to the domain of educational science.
Indonesia currently lacks a nationally recognized institution responsible for developing and certifying pedagogical competence in higher education. This is precisely where IKIP should reassert its relevance.
Rather than functioning as a subordinate component within general universities, a revitalized IKIP should become the national authority for teaching and learning excellence. It should be entrusted with developing pedagogical standards, certifying instructional competence among university lecturers, and advancing research in learning sciences across disciplines.
Beyond Classrooms: Education as National Strategy
Educational science extends far beyond schools and universities. Its relevance reaches into virtually every strategic domain of national development.
Military modernization, police reform, bureaucratic transformation, corporate innovation, and civil-service professionalism are, at their core, learning challenges. Each seeks to change behavior, develop competencies, reshape mindsets, and cultivate adaptive organizational cultures.
These are fundamentally questions of learning design.
State-Owned Enterprises (BUMN) and public institutions do not merely require training programs. They require comprehensive learning architectures—systematic frameworks that integrate competency development, organizational learning, performance management, and continuous improvement.
Likewise, the State Civil Apparatus (ASN) cannot become adaptive simply through regulatory reforms. Sustainable transformation requires evidence-based learning systems capable of shaping both individual capabilities and institutional cultures.
In many advanced nations, learning sciences occupy a strategic position within public policy. National competitiveness increasingly depends not on natural resources alone, but on a society’s capacity to learn faster than the challenges it faces.
Such capability requires more than instructors. It requires learning architects.
Restoring the National Mandate of IKIP
Indonesia stands at a strategic crossroads.
Continuing along the current trajectory risks further marginalizing educational science and weakening one of the most important foundations of national development: the capacity to learn, adapt, and innovate.
An alternative path is available.
Rather than viewing IKIP narrowly as a producer of teachers, Indonesia should reposition it as a national center of excellence in learning sciences. Such an institution would not compete with existing universities; instead, it would provide the intellectual infrastructure necessary for improving learning across sectors.
A revitalized IKIP should function as:
- a national authority for pedagogical standards and certification;
- a center for research and innovation in learning sciences;
- a strategic partner for industry and BUMN in designing competency-development systems;
- a learning architect for public-sector transformation and human-capital development; and
- a hub for advancing lifelong learning across society.
The future of nations is increasingly determined not by what they possess, but by how quickly they can learn.
A country that neglects the science of learning is, in effect, attempting to navigate the future without a compass.
About the Author
Aries Musnandar is a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Islamic Studies and the Postgraduate Program of Universitas Islam Raden Rahmat (UNIRA) Malang. He holds a Doctorate in Education and brings extensive experience from both academia and industry, including managerial positions in multinational corporations. He also served as a guest lecturer at Universitas Brawijaya for nearly a decade (2004–2014).
