The Bincang Inspiratif podcast returns with an insightful discussion on the crucial role parents play in nurturing critical thinking and empathy in their children. In this episode, we are joined by Shahnaz Haque, a well-known figure and mother of three, who shares her personal experiences in guiding her children to develop critical, analytical, and creative thinking skills from a young age.
A key theme in this conversation is how technological advancements, particularly artificial intelligence (AI) tools like ChatGPT, are increasingly shaping the way children learn. While AI can be a useful resource, Shahnaz emphasizes that direct interaction between parents and children remains essential for fostering their social and emotional development.
This episode also highlights the pivotal role of parents as their children’s first educators, especially in helping them manage emotions, establish positive habits, and cultivate empathy. Additionally, the discussion explores how unresolved emotional issues in parents can influence their parenting styles and, in turn, affect their children’s growth.
Throughout the conversation, Shahnaz encourages parents, teachers, and the wider community to embrace Ki Hajar Dewantara’s Tri Pusat Pendidikan (Three Education Centers) philosophy, which promotes collaboration between family, school, and the broader community to create a supportive learning environment.
Teachers are encouraged to create a fun learning environment to spark students’ interest in learning.
When children feel safe to explore new ideas and learn from their mistakes, they are better equipped to grow into resilient individuals capable of tackling future challenges.
Don’t miss out on this conversation and listen to it here:
Country Head of Tanoto Foundation, Inge Kusuma (far left), Governor of the National Resilience Institute of Indonesia, Ace Hasan Syadzily (third from the left), Acting Director of Learning and Student Affairs at the Directorate General of Higher Education, Research, and Technology, Berry Juliandi (third from the right), Head of Leadership Development and Scholarship at Tanoto Foundation, Michael Susanto (far right), together with representatives of Tanoto Scholars Cohort 2025.
JAKARTA, February 7, 2025 – Soft skills are one of the key elements in shaping young generations capable of competing and tackling the challenges of globalization and the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Soft skills are also essential competencies for Indonesian youth in realizing Indonesia’s Vision 2045.
A 1918 study by Harvard University, The Carnegie Foundation, and Stanford Research Center stated that 85% of career success is attributed to strong soft skills. This is further reinforced by the Future of Jobs Report published by the World Economic Forum in 2023, which highlights that soft skills such as analytical and creative thinking, perseverance, flexibility, strong motivation, self-awareness, curiosity, and continuous learning are crucial for career development.
Based on this, Tanoto Foundation, an independent philanthropic organization in education founded by Sukanto Tanoto and Tinah Bingei Tanoto in 1981, is committed to supporting the government in creating future leaders equipped with soft skills who are ready to contribute and make an impact on society and the nation. One of the ways this commitment is implemented is through the TELADAN (Transformational Education for Leadership Development) leadership scholarship program for undergraduate students.
On Friday, February 7, 2025, Tanoto Foundation officially welcomed 204 students as TELADAN scholarship recipients (also known as Tanoto Scholars) for the 2025 cohort from 10 partner universities of Tanoto Foundation. These students consist of 150 students admitted through the regular TELADAN selection process (who will receive a monthly stipend and leadership development programs) and 54 students holding the Indonesia Smart Card for College (KIP-K), who will receive TELADAN leadership development programs. The inclusion of KIP-K recipients in the TELADAN leadership program is part of Tanoto Foundation’s long-standing collaboration with the Ministry of Higher Education, Research, and Technology (Kemendikti Saintek), which began with the TELADAN 2024 cohort.
These regular program students have gone through a rigorous selection process, starting with a total of 6,913 applicants, culminating in 154 students being selected. Meanwhile, KIP-K recipients were directly appointed by Kemendikti Saintek.
“Today marks the beginning of your journey towards becoming Indonesia’s future leaders with impact. True leaders are those who can think critically, make wise decisions, empathize with others, work in teams, make strong contributions, and create impact through actions, not just words,” said Inge Kusuma, Country Head of Tanoto Foundation.
The TELADAN program consists of three phases over three and a half years, where Tanoto Scholars will receive leadership development support through several stages: lead self (semester two to four), lead others (semester five to six), and professional preparation (semester seven to eight).
Throughout these phases, Tanoto Scholars will have the opportunity to conduct research, engage in community service, network with fellow Tanoto Scholars in Indonesia and globally, participate in internships, study abroad, and develop their careers.
“We must be able to anticipate future challenges, adapt to changes, and always innovate. Think outside the box. All goals can be achieved if we can collaborate,” said Ace Hasan Syadzily, Governor of the National Resilience Institute of Indonesia, during a discussion and motivation session at the TELADAN 2025 Cohort Inauguration.
In the same event, Berry Juliandi, Acting Director of Learning and Student Affairs at Kemendikti Saintek, advised Tanoto Scholars to maintain a balance between academic and non-academic skills during their university years as preparation for the future.
“You must believe that you can excel in both academic and non-academic areas. The rapid changes in today’s world require continuous learning. The key is to keep learning (learn), unlearn outdated knowledge, and relearn new things,” said Berry Juliandi.
Inge concluded by encouraging students to start creating positive impacts on society as a form of paying it forward for receiving the Tanoto Scholars scholarship.
“A new journey begins—make the most of this opportunity. Along the way, you may face disappointments or failures. Never fear failure, as it is the path to success. Always remember to be a lifelong learner,” said Inge.
Since its launch in 2006, Tanoto Foundation’s undergraduate scholarship program has benefited 8,803 recipients. In 2019, the scholarship program evolved into the TELADAN Leadership Scholarship Program, where Tanoto Foundation not only provides financial support but also structured leadership development training.
The TELADAN program is open annually to first-year students from 10 partner universities: Universitas Indonesia, Institut Teknologi Bandung, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Universitas Brawijaya, Universitas Diponegoro, IPB University, Universitas Riau, Universitas Sumatra Utara, Universitas Hasanuddin, and Universitas Mulawarman.
The TELADAN program aims to develop Indonesia’s future leaders with nine key characteristics: self-awareness, drive, innovation, continuous learning, care for others, empowerment, grit, integrity, and an entrepreneurial spirit.
One in four Indonesian children is stunted. Caused by malnutrition, the real problem with stunting is not its impact on height, but rather on a child’s brain development. Stunted children are susceptible to long-term developmental delays and weakened immune systems. The implications on health, academic success and economic opportunities cast a shadow on these children forever.
Despite the global pandemic, and disruption to essential healthcare services and vaccination delivery, Indonesia has managed to reduce its stunting rate from 31 percent in 2018 to 24 percent in 2021. What has gone right and what can we do more of?
While stunting can be prevented, it is a complex issue requiring a multidisciplinary solution and collaboration across different stakeholders. With the launch of the National Strategy to Accelerate Stunting Prevention (StraNas Stunting) in 2017, the government mobilized US$14.6 billion to converge health, nutrition and early-childhood interventions across 23 government ministries and agencies.
Coordinating efforts requires real-time, individualized data; regular surveys; and comprehensive-monitoring systems. Partnering with the World Bank, Tanoto Foundation published a dashboard with key metrics related to the child’s first 1,000 days. This serves as a central database for different organizations and government entities to not only better target and coordinate programs at the household level, but also to replicate and scale up impactful solutions.
The provincial governments play a pivotal role in allocating and approving budgets for health and nutrition initiatives. To better coordinate, harmonize and scale up behavioral-change communication programs across districts and municipalities, we embarked on a project with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to provide technical assistance to provincial governments in this regard.
To further accelerate stunting prevention and reduction, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo earlier this year appointed the National Population and Planning Agency (BKKBN) to serve as the bridge between all other agencies and ministries, with an aim to fast-track the implementation of government programs on the ground.
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Parents play a major role in their children’s health and wellbeing. A combination of equipping parents with research-backed information and public-health campaigns emphasizing the importance of breastfeeding, complementary feeding, good sanitation and hygiene practices and vaccinations have helped reduce stunting.
With increased awareness, what was previously an “invisible problem” to most parents and policymakers became obvious. Coupled with regular nudges, counseling and monitoring through posyandu (integrated community health posts) and home visits, parents are able to develop and sustain good habits.
Building on these outreach programs for parents, the foundation leveraged on existing infrastructure and developed training modules and systems to equip 600,000 family support team members (TPK) and 39,000 social workers from the conditional-cash transfer program (Pendamping Sosial PKH) with the skills to address stunting in their programs.
The rapid advancement of technology is also an opportunity to empower parents. Parents can now easily access important information on child development, as well as consult experts from their mobile phone. There is a growing list of such apps and platforms, for example Tentang Anak, Teman Bumil and Primaku, that are now widely available.
Given Indonesia’s diversity, programs to tackle stunting have to be customized based on local conditions.
The main causes of stunting and resources available locally vary from region to region. Reducing the stunting rate further would require local leaders and communities to innovate. The good news is that local communities are taking the lead to think out-of-the-box.
One such example is dentist and head of the local community-health center in East Kalimantan, Rika Puspita. She found a way to reduce stunting prevalence by effectively merging two existing programs, namely the maternal health and child-nutrition program, by using an innovative “clustering” system. Before, the mother-child dyad was clustered by administrative function. In the new format, pregnant women, mothers and children are grouped according to needs and local characteristics.
As a result, health professionals can provide more intensive counselling to at-risk families and data is collected in a more systematic and timely manner. The outcome speaks for itself. Data collection for the Bukuan community where this new clustering takes place now takes around three months, as compared to other regions which can take up to two years. Better data collection enables better decision-making and more targeted intervention, therefore expediting the action that has to be taken to reduce stunting.
Going forward, we have to double down on our investment in health and nutrition programs. While Indonesia has regulations relating to food fortification, more can be done in its implementation. The linkage between social protection and food fortification should be further strengthened. Campaigns on breastfeeding and complementary feeding must continue and reach the poorest and most vulnerable communities.
Our approach to tackle stunting must also be holistic, covering stimulation, health and nutrition. We have to continue to improve the quality of early-childhood education, starting at home with responsive caregiving and good parenting. Parents should instil a love of reading in their children from a young age, as well as provide a nurturing and safe environment for their children.
At the national and sub-national levels, more can be done to strengthen policies, programs and services. Multiple stakeholders including organizations such as ours, non-profits, corporates and the government have to work hand-in-hand. With our collective knowledge and experiences, we can leverage each other’s work to create an enabling environment for our children to thrive in.
