Tanoto Foundation, as the leader of the Education Cluster appointed by Filantropi Indonesia in 2018, took the initiative to conduct an inaugural meeting attended by 14 philanthropists in Jakarta on June 20, 2019.

The Education Cluster is a forum for educational philanthropists and the government to discuss collaborative efforts to strengthen the education system in Indonesia. The Cluster focuses on collaboration, supporting the government in implementing sustainable development goals, and advocacy.

“As an independent philanthropic organisation focused on education, Tanoto Foundation believes that quality education accelerates equal opportunity. Through this Education Cluster, Tanoto Foundation will be a catalyst for philanthropists to collaborate in improving the quality of education in Indonesia,” said Satrijo Tanudjojo, Global CEO Tanoto Foundation.

At the meeting, Tanoto Foundation presented the framework for an Education Cluster Charter, which is meant to be the basis for measuring the Cluster’s operational performance.

The philanthropists also agreed to form a working group as well as an annual work plan. The work plan will be devised following a mapping of the strengths of each philanthropic organisation, so that they can complement each other in moving towards targeted achievements, both in the short and long term.

The working group is meant to have three areas of focus: capacity building, policy advocacy, and knowledge management.

“Filantropi Indonesia welcomes Tanoto Foundation’s initiative to form relevant working groups as part of efforts to improve the quality of education in Indonesia. Needless to say, we aim to support it by facilitating every activity, such as when it comes to policy advocacy efforts with the government,” said Hamid Abidin, Executive Director of Filantropi Indonesia.  

Started on 14 May 2019, Tanoto Foundation has a partnership with Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Regional Centre for Early Childhood Care and Education and Parenting (SEAMEO CECCEP). Through this partnership, Tanoto Foundation will provide contribution of personnel to support the SEAMEO CECCEP Technical Advisory Group. This will contribute to continuous capacity improvement of both organisations and enrich the ECD development in Indonesia and South East Asia.

Meanwhile, EAMEO CECCEP will facilitate Tanoto Foundation in buidling cooperation with university partners of SEAMEO CECCEP across the region for research and development on early childhood care, education and parenting.

In March 2019, Tanoto Foundation officially became an institutional member of Asia-Pacific Regional Network for Early Childhood (ARNEC). ARNEC is a network established to build strong partnerships across sectors and different disciplines, organisations, agencies and institutions in the Asia-Pacific region to advance the agenda on and investment in Early Childhood. The institutional membership is valid for two years upon signing of the agreement (renewable upon mutual agreement).

Tanoto Foundation gets opportunity to join the institutional member’s networking event at the ARNEC conference, collaborate on joint activities (i.e. research, advocacy, documentation, capacity building) and showcase and share our ECD program practices with the network.