Actor Analysis: Indonesia Mengajar, Anies Baswedan

Dion Ginanto 

I write this article not because Anies Baswedan is running for the governor candidate in Jakarta. This is mainly due to his inspirational movement in founding Indonesia Mengajar. I still remember in 2009, just one year after my graduation I received a forward email from Anies Baswedan inviting fresh graduates to teach in a remote area. I was so touched by how Dr.Baswedan encouraged a new graduate like me to be a young teacher in a place where electricity is not available; the water system is not in place; and the internet or phone access is unavailable. I was about to submit my application, but at the same time, I also received a call from the government to be a civil servant to teach in a high school. I decided to take the opportunity to be a civil servant teacher because the government also deployed me in a school with a similar criterion of Indonesia Mengajar. That was my first interaction with Indonesia Mengajar. So, what is Indonesia Mengajar (IM)? 

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IM is a non-profit organization founded by Anies Baswedan which mission is to recruit high-achieving college graduates to teach in a remote area across Indonesia.  IM goal is to help the Indonesian government in fulfilling teachers’ shortage in the most isolated areas. Anies Baswedan was inspired by his former professor at Gadjah Mada University,  Dr. Koesnadi Hardjasoemantri (Pak Koes). Pak Koes during the early years of Indonesian Independence (1950), initiated a social movement to send young leaders to a remote area to teach high school students (Indonesia Mengajar, n.d). This movement did not only help with the teachers’ scarcity, but it also contributed to the establishment of some new schools in the area. Similar to Pak Koes’s movement, IM sends young teachers to the elementary schools outside Java Island. This movement is to answer the teacher's disparity between Java and outside Java (Indonesia Mengajar, n.d).

IM sent its first cohort in 2011, and now IM has already had its 7^th cohort. There are three primary goals of IM: (1) to encourage sustainable impacts in the targeted areas; (2) to establish the future leaders’ network who think globally and act locally; and (3) to build a social education movement in Indonesia (Indonesia Mengajar, n.d). IM has already deployed more than 600 best graduates around 134 villages across Indonesia by 2016 (Indonesia Mengajar, n.d).  

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What makes it unique compared to similar movement like Teach for America or Teach for India is that IM tries to utilize the local wisdom in the area where the young leaders are placed. They will be equipped with the leadership skills, community-building skills, and other soft skills to make them not only as a teacher but also as a role model in the community. “It is not about teaching,” said Baswedan when a journalist interviewed him (Indonesia Mengajar, n.d). Anies Baswedan argued that every IM teachers are expected to be a young leader who inspires the community (Indonesia Mengajar, n.d).

In his Tedtalk Jakarta’s speech, Dr. Baswedan mentioned that it was hard to recruit a qualified teacher to teach in a very remote area, however, if it is only for one year long, then the young leaders can simultaneously inspire students who are in the borders and isolated locations (Baswedan, 2011). The IM teachers are equipped with the survival skills that they received at their seven months training.

Networking: the Power of Indonesia Mengajar

            Social networking is the essential power of Anies Baswedan to run this program. Unlike Bill and Melinda Gate, who have sufficient resources to run the social movements, or Ashish Dhawan who has been the investor and philanthropist for Teach for India; or other donors who fund the non-profit organizations; Anies Baswedan gathers the resources through social networking. Ball defined network into two parts. First, he sees the network as a structure of policy and its social relationship. Second, he argues that the network at the same time can be defined as the institutionalization of power relations (Ball, 2012).  I agree with Menashy (2016) that currently there are two trends in the international governance: (1) the rise of international coordination; and (2) the rise of the non-state actors. This international coordination and the non-state actors are therefore called as a new governance system which goes beyond a nation-state (Ball, 2016; Menashy, 2016).

 Anies understands that he has no money to fund his movement, however, he knows where to gather the donors. Anies also realizes that a good person with a good idea will not be able to implement the plan without having a backing support from the donors (Ball, 2012). Therefore, Anies really maximized his power of networking. Anis Baswedan is not only proposing IM to the big corporation, but he is also encouraging individual party to support IM.

Anies has been an activist since he was doing his undergraduate program at Gadjah Mada University. He served as a university student senate in 1996. He was also a founder of Center for Student and Community Development (CSCD) in Yogyakarta (SEAMAO, nd). He received his master from the University of Maryland and a doctoral degree from the Northern Illinois University, U.S.A.  Perhaps his exposure to American education, as well as Teach for America, shapes a little bit of his mission in founding IM. Also, when he established IM in 2009, he was at the same time serving as the rector of the University at Paramadina. He benefitted his power and relations both as academia and as a bureaucrat.  His extensive connections both locally and internationally have been proven by his ability to run and fund IM from 2009 until recently.

How actually IM receives its funding? IM in its website claims that unlike other non-government organizations which rely on the international donors, IM committed to engaging public participation to run the program (Pristine, n.d; Hardono, 2016).  If the claim is true, it means IM only uses local CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) as well as a public donation for this non-profit organization. To proof the the claim of the IM, I visited the IM website and conducted a small analysis of its partners: 

Donors	Local/National Corporation	International/Overseas Corporation
PGN (Perusahaan Gas  Negara) is a state-owned company.	X	-
Dongi Senoro is branch company owned by Mitsubishi Corporation.		X
Permata Bank used to be Bank Bali.	X
Nutrisari W’Dank is a local beverage company	X
Orica Mining Services is an Australian-based multinational corporation.		X
Mitsubishi Corporation is Japan’s largest trading company		X
PT. BFI Finance is a joint corporation of leasing corporation in the U.S.A and the local partners.	X	X
EF (Education First) International education company based in Switzerland.		X
PT. SMI Infrastructure financing company, owned by the Indonesian government.	X
Telkomsel Is telecommunication company owned by Indonesia (65%) and Singapore (35%).	X	X
First State Investment An investment company based in Australia.		X
DOW is a multinational chemical corporation headquartered in Michigan, U.S.A.		X
PERTAMINA Indonesia state owned company  (oil and natural gas.)		X
Surfer Girl A company based in Australia.		X
Ultra Jaya Dairy product company based in Indonesia.	X
PT. Nusantara Compnet Integrator Network and Communication company based in Jakarta, Indonesia.	X
Lee Cooper Lee Cooper is an English clothing company, operating worldwide, headquartered in London.		X
Blibli Indonesian online shopping company.	X
Wardah Indonesian cosmetic company.	X
BTPN Bank Indonesian local bank.	X
Chevron an American multinational energy corporation.		X
Indosat Ooredoo Telecommunication company in Indonesia (65% Qatar, 15% Indonesia).		X
Merck Is a science and technology company based in Germany.		X
Garuda Indonesia Indonesia national airline company.	X
Bluebird Taxi Indonesia taxi company.		X
Gojek Indonesia hyperlocal transport company.	X
JNE Indonesia courier services company.	X
Kompas Gramedia The media company in Indonesia.	X
PWC Professional consulting company, based in United Kingdom.		X
Public participation	X

Indonesia Mengajar Partners 

From the table above, we can see that 50% of the partners/donors are the companies headquartered outside Indonesia. It means Anies Baswedan has transformed himself as a local actor who can maximize the international aids to help his non-profit organization. It also means that the IM’s claim that IM will not be dependable to international aids is not 100% true.  The above chart is also an indication that the local movement will not be able to avoid the global participation (Vavrus, 2003).

IM and The Indonesian Education Policy

IM has inspired the Indonesian government to create a similar movement prior to recruiting the new civil servant teachers. Three years after the initiation of IM, the Indonesian government created a similar program to support the remotest schools across the country called SM3T. SM3T is a program established by the ministry of education in 2011 which is aimed to send fresh graduates to teach in the furthest areas. While IM is funded by the non-state actors, SM3T is funded by the Indonesian government. IM and SM3T are not conflicting with each other. When Anies Baswedan was appointed as a minister of education in 2015, he did not want to use the government budget to run IM. He let IM continues its program while he was also running the SM3T. 


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The IM alumni are expected to continue their services when they come back to their own community to join or establish Kelas Inspirasi. Kelas Inspirasi is IM’s branch movement to engage the professionals in teaching in a classroom. These professionals are supposed to inspire, motivate, and interact with students within one day. This community engagement is an opportunity for professionals to contribute to teaching kids in the classroom. Kelas Inspirasi is expected to widen the students’ ideas and inspiration for them to have a bigger dream for their future. 

All in all, IM has been effectively contributing to the Indonesian Education. If IM can maintain its consistency to inspire the students to think globally but act locally, to keep engaging the community, as well as to cooperate with the government; then I am optimistic that the education in Indonesia will progress in a positive way.