Nusa Dua, Bali, September 1, 2022 –
Opening the Ministerial Meeting of the G20 Education Working Group (EdWG), Indonesia Minister of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology, Nadiem Anwar Makarim invited all delegates to continue to learn from each other's best practices among G20 member countries in order to build a more robust and relevant education system.
As the guiding principle of the Indonesian G20 Presidency, it is the forum's aspiration that the spirit of gotong royong is expected to be carried forward to the next presidencies as a way to promote global collaboration in realizing education transformation. The Education Ministerial Meeting held in Bali on Thursday (01/09) is the G20 Education Working Group summit following four working group conferences led by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology.
Minister Makarim said that throughout the G20 EdWG journey, the MoECRT has learned from other countries' perspectives and experiences as a foundation to recover together and recover stronger. "This spirit of gotong royong has guided Indonesia's G20 Presidency and it is my sincere hope that this spirit will be carried forward to the next presidency in the years to come," added Minister Nadiem.
After tested positive for COVID-19, the Minister addressed his colleagues, "I also would like to thank you for your participation, both in-person and virtually, at the Fourth Education Working Group meeting, and our today's meeting, even after I shared the news. With that commitment, I believe that despite the fact that I am unable to chair the Minister's Meeting from Bali, I hope that we can still achieve our objective to finalize our deliverables and long-term goals of recovering and transforming the education system."
Gotong Royong Journey in G20 Education
Recalling the journey of the EdWG at previous meetings, the Minister of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology expressed his excitement to the progress made, as well as hoping to further refine and complete the G20 Education Working Group Report and the Chair's Summary.
The first meeting in Yogyakarta, 16-18 March 2022, said Minister Makarim, went productive in uniting our understanding and commitment on the four priority issues of the Education Working Group, which serve as the guiding principles of the G20 Education Working Group in policy initiatives and policy-planning.
While on the second meeting conducted in hybrid format, the forum discussed the initial draft of the working group's deliverables. "We then marked an important milestone during the second Education Working Group meeting on the 18th and 19th of May by agreeing to bring the voice of the G20 to the United Nations' Transforming Education Summit (TES)," he said. Minister Makarim also added that the discussion on the deliverables later continued in the third meeting on the 26th and 27th of July, and during the fourth meeting that was just held yesterday.
Concluding his opening remarks, Miniter Makarim underlined his invitation to all delegates to continue learning from each other and promote global collaboration.
"I hope we can all take this opportunity to learn from each other's best practices so that we would be able to lay the foundations of stronger global collaboration to build education systems fit for the 21st century and beyond", Minister Makarim concluded.
