Kampus Merdeka: Providing Meaningful Engagement in a Disruptive World

Abstract

The Kampus Merdeka policy initiative aims to reframe the pedagogical intent linking engagement with industry and civil society, while transforming and freeing the Indonesian education sector from the one size fits all educational pedagogy of the past. Thus, Kampus Merdeka, on one level, can be seen as freeing the learners to develop an educational experience that matches their individual needs, whilst others may view this policy initiative as embedding the ‘industrialization’ of education into the mainstream, promoting industry requirements over personal development (Kodrat, 2021). That said, there are notable concerns regarding the ability and capacity of educational institutes to implement this major policy shift under Kampus Merdeka. This research conducted semi-structured individual interviews around the issues and concerns expressed by academic staff as they attempt to take their first tentative steps towards meaningful engagement in work-integrated learning programs.