Artificial Intelligence Regulation In Indonesian Education: Frameworks, Challenges, And Policy Directions

This policy brief, produced by Kontika (2026) under the PakuPintar series, analyzes Indonesia’s Joint Ministerial Decree (SKB No. 9/PMK/2026) signed on March 12, 2026 — the country’s first comprehensive national framework regulating AI use across all educational levels, from early childhood to higher education. The decree introduces a tiered access model grounded in cognitive development theory: general AI chatbots are prohibited at the elementary level, supervised AI literacy is introduced at junior secondary, active AI use including prompt engineering is encouraged at senior secondary, and universities must include an AI Statement in academic works. The brief situates the policy within global debates on “brain rot” and “cognitive debt,” benchmarks it against approaches in Italy, Australia, China, and UNESCO, and proposes five recommendations: establishing educational AI certification criteria, scaling teacher training toward a mandatory AI curriculum by 2027–2028, instituting biennial regulatory reviews, developing a locally rooted EdTech ecosystem, and integrating AI literacy for parents across all 514 districts.