This policy perspective examines Indonesia's Merdeka Belajar ("Emancipated Learning") initiative, a comprehensive education reform agenda initiated in 2019. The primary objective of this reform is to enhance learning outcomes, make schooling a more joyful experience, and empower students and school communities. The new "Emancipation Curriculum" emphasises foundational competencies and 21st-century skills and adopts holistic, formative assessment methods. It streamlines content and introduces innovative teaching methods, while increasing teachers' flexibility and autonomy in schools. It also instigates a new model of teacher professional learning. This document contextualises these initiatives within the international education landscape. It offers perspectives on what could help Indonesia ensure the success of these reforms, potentially reshaping the country's educational future and contributing to its development and prosperity.

The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) examines what students know in reading, mathematics and science, and what they can do with what they know. It provides the most comprehensive and rigorous international assessment of student learning outcomes to date. Results from PISA indicate the quality and equity of learning outcomes attained around the world, and allow educators and policy makers to learn from the policies and practices applied in other countries. This country note provides a country-specific overview of Indonesia.

The Survey of Adult Skills, a product of the OECD Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), was designed to provide insights into the availability of some of these key skills in society and how they are used at work and at home. The first survey of its kind, it directly measures proficiency in three information-processing skills: literacy, numeracy and problem-solving in technology-rich environments. This country note provides a country-specific overview of Jakarta (Indonesia).

Having made impressive progress in widening access to basic education, Indonesia must now consolidate these gains and develop an education system that will support better the needs of a rapidly emerging economy in its transition towards high-income status. This report provides guidance on how Indonesia can rise to this challenge. It highlights three main policy directions which, pursued together, would help Indonesia advance on the path towards stronger growth and more inclusive and sustainable development. The first priority is to raise the quality of education and ensure that all learners acquire the skills they need to succeed in life and work. The second goal is to widen participation, requiring a concerted effort to improve access for disadvantaged groups and expand provision beyond the basic level. The final challenge is to increase efficiency, with a more data-driven approach to resource allocation, better tailoring of provision to local needs, and stronger performance management.

This short country note recaps some Background on the 2014 OECD Measuring Innovation in Education report, the main Key report findings on innovation in education, the Report approach to measuring educational system innovation, along with Indonesia's top five organisational education innovations for the 2003-2011 period and Indonesia's top five pedagogic education innovations for the same interval.