Climate change education in Indonesia's formal education: a policy analysis

Climate change poses escalating risks to ecosystems, economies, and societies, elevating the importance of education in enabling awareness, understanding, and action. Climate change education (CCE) seeks to build knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes for informed mitigation and adaptation. While prior research has focused on curriculum and pedagogy, less is known about how CCE is integrated within the broader policy framework—particularly crucial in formal education where policy powerfully shapes practice. Effective CCE for a cross-cutting issue like climate change requires coherence and synergy between proximate policy domains—climate change policy and education policy—through coordinated policy instrument mixes. In Southeast Asia and other developing contexts, comprehensive analyses of CCE policy integration remain scarce. Indonesia is a salient case: the world’s largest archipelago, highly vulnerable to climate impacts, a top-10 emitter, and committed through revised NDCs and a 2060 net-zero goal, yet rated lower-middle in preparedness and readiness. In the absence of a standalone CCE policy, this study asks: (1) How is CCE perceived, integrated, and prioritised within climate change policy and education policy in Indonesia? (2) To what extent is there congruency or incongruency in the conceptualisation of CCE across these domains? The analysis aims to illuminate integration challenges and opportunities to strengthen CCE in Indonesia’s formal education.

Research on CCE expanded notably after 2010, examining students’ awareness, knowledge, attitudes, behaviors, and misconceptions, as well as teachers’ perspectives and professional development, and curriculum/pedagogy work. However, policy development and enactment remain underexplored, despite policy’s strong influence on schooling. Global reviews highlight limited attention to CCE, weak enforcement, and poor synergy between climate and education policies, with evidence largely from developed contexts (UK, Canada, USA). In England, economic framings (e.g., net zero, green jobs) and depoliticisation have been noted; in Canada, climate policy mentions education more than education policy mentions climate change, reflecting shallow engagement and a focus on school energy efficiency over pedagogy or teacher PD. In Indonesia, studies have documented limited environmental education in prior curricula, lack of political will, and students’ incomplete or inconsistent climate knowledge—underscoring the need to integrate CCE into the national curriculum and examine policy coherence.

The study conducted a thematic analysis of national-level climate change policy documents and K–12 education policy documents, complemented by expert interviews. Following distinctions between policies, policy instruments, and instrument settings, the sample comprised: (a) 20 climate change policy texts (1999–2022), including national action plans, NDCs, roadmaps, national communications, and UNFCCC reports; and (b) 12 education policy texts (2003–2022), including education laws, ministerial strategic plans, national curriculum regulations, and curriculum guidelines. Documents were sourced from the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (MoEF) and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology (MoECRT) websites. Seventeen anonymised semi-structured expert interviews were conducted with 10 national-level officials (MoEF’s Directorate General of Climate Change and relevant MoECRT units) and 7 local government officials (environmental and education agencies). Ethical procedures (consent, anonymisation) were followed. Data were organised into two corpora (climate policy + climate experts; education policy + education experts). Using NVivo 14, two inductively developed codebooks (one per corpus) guided iterative coding. Thematic analysis then identified patterns in how CCE is conceptualised in each domain and assessed cross-domain congruence.

• CCE marginalisation in climate policy: Across climate policy documents, ‘education’ appeared 149 times (~0.02% coverage), often not denoting CCE; ‘capacity’ (as in capacity building) appeared 2,215 times (~0.32%). Capacity building was emphasised for central/local government, legislative bodies, private sector, and communities, with predominantly technical aims (e.g., low-carbon tech skills, GHG monitoring, emissions reduction design). Capacity-building activities recorded: 91 (2000–2008), 41 (2011–2014), and 1,153 (2014–2020), concentrated in energy (44%), forestry (27%), waste (16%), agriculture (8%), and industry (4%), though records were acknowledged as incomplete due to weak monitoring and coordination. Children were scarcely referenced; only one document explicitly addressed children’s climate literacy (Child Centred Climate Change Adaptation initiative). Limited, scattered references to formal education included calls to integrate climate topics into curricula (first planned 2007–2009; integrated across subjects from 2011), and a climate textbook from the Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysical Agency with unclear utilisation. - CCE marginalisation in education policy: In education policy documents, references to ‘sustainability’ totaled 126 (≤0.02% coverage) and ‘climate change’ plus ‘global warming’ totaled 128 (≤0.02%). Education priorities reflected decentralisation, local contextualisation, and competition among subjects (e.g., diversity, civics, religion, language/arts). Sustainability was present in the 2010–2014 strategic plan, absent 2015–2019, and reappeared 2020–2024. Climate change references increased in 2022 with the Merdeka Curriculum: Content Standards link sustainability with selected subjects (religion and biology), and guidelines list ‘sustainable future-oriented learning’ among five pedagogical principles. The 1,822-page Learning Achievement document includes climate references mainly in science (lower-secondary: prevention/response to pollution and climate change; grade 10 physics: climate change/global warming; grade 10 chemistry: connect chemistry to global warming). Only one non-science (sociology) mentions climate; geography does not include climate change (despite earlier curricula). - Lack of synergies and stakeholder coordination: Climate policy primarily uses ‘capacity building’ (aligned with UNFCCC discourse), aiming to develop technical skills and workforce for climate-related sectors (e.g., renewable energy, carbon finance). Education policy frames CCE as ‘education’ oriented to character formation and pro-environmental action through lifelong learning and curriculum instruments. Policies appear developed in silos with minimal explicit inter-ministerial engagement; climate policy focuses on non-formal/technical capacity building, while education policy focuses on formal schooling and values/behaviour. Interviews revealed jurisdictional ambiguity and responsibility shifting between MoEF and MoECRT, compounded by bureaucratic silo mentality and reliance on personal networks for coordination. - Predominant economic values: Both policy domains emphasise economic development (just transition, green/low-carbon economy), aligning climate initiatives with national growth, poverty reduction, jobs, and regional equity. Mitigation and adaptation are framed with economic considerations; emission fluctuations are viewed as normal for developing countries in key sectors (FOLU, energy). Capacity building prioritises workforce development and technical competencies; education policy emphasises producing competitive, innovative graduates to meet labour demands (e.g., projected need for 113 million skilled workers by 2030, demographic bonus). This economic centrism risks downplaying environmental ambition and marginalising CCE. - Optimistic outlook: The Merdeka Curriculum reduces subject overload, enabling flexibility for integrating CCE, and promotes project-based learning via the Pancasila Student Profile Strengthening Project (P5), with themes such as Love the Earth (early childhood) and Sustainable Lifestyle (primary/secondary). The Minister of Education has prioritised climate change, with a CCE competency map and pilot programmes planned (from 2024) to inform potential nationwide mandate. Additional avenues include the Disaster Safe Education Unit (SPAB) programme (integrating climate risk and adaptation into curriculum) and the Adiwiyata green schools award programme, which has been associated with improved environmental knowledge and attitudes among students.

The study’s findings address the central questions by showing that CCE is weakly prioritised and unevenly conceptualised across Indonesia’s climate and education policy domains. Climate policy predominantly frames CCE as ‘capacity building’ for technical and sectoral competencies aligned with economic development and mitigation/adaptation implementation. Education policy frames CCE as ‘education’ geared toward moral development, values, and pro-environmental behaviours within formal schooling. This lexical and conceptual divergence reflects institutional silos and limited cross-domain coordination, leading to gaps (e.g., marginal attention to children and formal schooling in climate policy; limited, science-centric curricular integration in education policy) and potential duplications. The economic framing that dominates both domains helps align CCE with national priorities (growth, jobs, poverty reduction) but can constrain environmental ambition and holistic integration of CCE (e.g., socio-emotional and behavioural dimensions beyond technical skills). Nevertheless, the Merdeka Curriculum’s flexibility, project-based learning (P5), ministerial commitment, and complementary programmes (SPAB, Adiwiyata) provide realistic pathways to integrate CCE more coherently into formal education. Advancing policy integration—clarifying roles, building inter-ministerial mechanisms, and aligning instruments across climate and education—will be crucial for effective design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of CCE, and for leveraging schools as agents of societal transformation on climate.

This policy analysis contributes a comprehensive, empirically grounded view of CCE integration in a large developing country context. It identifies four themes—marginalisation of CCE, lack of synergies across policies and stakeholders, predominant economic values, and an optimistic near-term outlook—mirroring trends observed in developed contexts while highlighting Indonesia-specific dynamics (decentralisation, bureaucratic silos, economic imperatives). The paper underscores the need for deliberate policy integration between climate and education domains, including a unified policy frame, explicit goals, aligned instruments (capacity building, curriculum, teacher professional development), and clear governance arrangements for joint design, implementation, and evaluation. Immediate opportunities include leveraging the Merdeka Curriculum and P5, piloting and scaling a dedicated CCE competency map and curricular integration, and strengthening complementary programmes (SPAB, Adiwiyata). Future research should: (1) conduct comparative analyses across developing regions facing distinct socio-economic and environmental challenges; (2) appraise CCE policy implementation and outcomes (including monitoring and evaluation systems); and (3) investigate teacher professional development, pedagogy across disciplines beyond science, and student socio-emotional and behavioural learning outcomes.