- Parliament has been urged to use the Basic Education Bill, 2026, to clarify the meaning, objectives and curriculum substance of basic education, not just its structural provisions.
- The Bill remains precise on structural matters such as schooling levels and finance, but imprecise on the essence and purpose of education itself.
The Basic Education Bill, 2026, now before the National Assembly’s Departmental Committee on Education, is set for deliberation and, in the fullness of time, will become law. The Basic Education Act 2013 will stand repealed upon Presidential assent to the Bill, if and when Parliament approves it. I urge lawmakers to take advantage of the Bill to address some of the ambiguities and vagueness that permeate ongoing policy and legislative reforms on education. We have no option: clarity, precision and definiteness must permeate the language of policy and legislative reform on education. Without this, the country will not move from the current state of discomfort with education to the next frontier, where education, particularly at basic education levels, will conclusively address the questions of access, equity and quality of education services the state gives its children.
Focus in the Basic Education Bill, as with the Basic Education Act 2013, is excessively on the structural aspects of education reform as opposed to the curriculum aspects of education reform. Education reform has two basic facets: structural and curriculum reform. Both are central to education, and the law should address both equally and expansively. While the Bill, as with the Basic Education Act 2013, is clear on the structural aspects of education, it is not as precise or as unambiguous on the ultimate essence of education: curriculum content. The structural aspects of education refer to the layers or levels of schooling, education finance, teachers, the bureaucracy to manage education, and centres of control. It is cagey, however, on the curriculum aspects of education, the meaning, objectives and challenges of education, and how to address them.
The words of the law on education in the Bill are imprecise. Lawyers will tell you that the words of the law are the law. The substance of education, its meaning, aims and ambitions, are left to conjecture. This should not be. The law must be precise and clear. There is a word in linguistics called a referent, defined as the concrete object or concept that is designated by a word or expression; it can be a person, thing or idea, concrete or abstract.
In the preliminary part of the Basic Education Bill, 2026, “basic education” means a programme offered at pre-primary, primary, junior school and senior school, and includes a programme offered at adult and continuing education centres. Other legislative jurisdictions call this part the interpretation part. Structurally, basic education refers to the pre-primary, primary and secondary tiers of education, the levels of education as designed by our education policy. The meaning of basic education has an independent meaning, over and above what the Bill assumes, and that is what should be stated. Basic education refers to the foundational level of education that equips individuals with essential skills in literacy, numeracy and critical thinking. These skills are foundational; they provide the guiding star that makes learning from Grade Four onwards easier.
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Mastering the programme offered at pre-primary, primary, junior school and senior school depends on something extrinsic, something external to the four levels of education. Adult and continuing education cannot happen without proficiency in literacy and numeracy, and the reasoning skills that reading proficiency generates. Reading and numeracy are the gateway to knowledge, both academic and vocational. Learning depends on reading proficiency, the ability to read with accuracy, fluency and comprehension.
The drafters of the Education Bill 2026 should have consulted as widely as possible. Had they done so, they would have underscored not only what basic education refers to, but also the meaning, objectives, aims and goals of education, beyond imparting the competencies outlined in the Basic Education Curriculum Framework 2016, the blueprint of Competency-Based Education (CBE). Education has four or five essential components: knowledge, skills, attitudes, values, and habits of thinking and behaviour. An educational law must provide some guidance on the place of these elements in schooling, and for what purpose, beyond serving the needs of the market or employment.
Policymakers in Indonesia acknowledged the complex dimensions of education in the Act of the Republic of Indonesia 2003 on the National Education System. The preamble of the law reads, in part: “Education means conscious and well-planned effort in creating a learning environment and learning process so that learners will be able to develop their full potential for acquiring spiritual and religious strengths, develop self-control, personality, intelligence, morals and noble character and skills that one needs for him/herself, for the community, for the nation, and for the State.”
The fundamentals of basic education are rooted in an educational policy that respects the cultural and intellectual heritage of mankind. Access to this fund of knowledge, skills, usages and capabilities is in a format that only traditional literacy, the ability to read and make meaning from what one has read, can interpret. It is in this context that WeVoi Country Director Peter O. Mong’are noted, in response to a social media post on essentialist education philosophy: “There’s no way students can think critically or solve complex problems without a deeply ingrained, common core knowledge base. By mastering difficult, structured content, learners naturally develop a robust work ethic and emotional resilience. This approach establishes logical, rigorous habits of mind by grounding learners in established disciplines such as mathematics, literature, science and history, thereby actively preventing chaotic, unguided thinking and replacing it with structured analysis, which ensures productive, equal membership of society.” WeVoi is an organisation that empowers young minds globally, championing diversity and nurturing confident, compassionate communicators through online and onsite platforms.
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The kind of education a country gives its children is embedded in policy and law. The law establishes the dos and don’ts, and must for that reason be directive, clear, precise and unambiguous, since it is the President who ultimately gets faulted when things go wrong. The Cabinet Secretary for Education, as guardian of the institutions that shape children and young people, must access the finest advice on education. Advisors must be men and women of letters, conversant with current thinking on education, whether conservative, progressive or radical, focused on the basic function of schooling and able to advise the Minister accordingly. Members of the National Assembly’s Departmental Committee on Education should similarly receive impartial policy advice from the best minds on these matters as they sift through the Bill and listen to citizens during public hearings.
Policymaking and lawmaking should not simply change education policy; it must also be an enlightened change. This is an opportunity to provide a basis for educating children for the next 20 years or so. Let us bring back rigour: rigour in beginning reading at the lower levels of schooling, rigour in curriculum, rigour in curriculum materials, rigour in inspection and supervision, and rigour in the management of examinations. We have not been courageous enough to confront the persistent menace of examination cheating in our national examination system.
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In 1976, exactly 50 years ago, former UK Prime Minister James Callaghan, in a speech at Ruskin College, Oxford, said: “There is no virtue in producing socially well-adjusted members of society who are unemployed because they do not have the skills. Nor at the other extreme must they be technically efficient robots. Both of the basic purposes of education require the same essential tools. These are basic literacy, basic numeracy, the understanding of how to live and work together, respect for others, respect for the individual. This means requiring certain basic knowledge, skills and reasoning ability. It means developing lively inquiring minds and an appetite for further knowledge that will last a lifetime. It means mitigating as far as possible the disadvantages that may be suffered through poor home conditions or physical or mental handicap. Are we aiming in the right direction in these matters?”
The Cabinet Secretary, Parliament and the President have an opportunity to stamp their legacy on education. They have a historic duty to restore educational excellence in all public schools in this country, be they in rural or urban areas. It can be done only if they focus a little more on the contents of the wine, and not the beauty of the wineskins.
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