Strengthening Global Competencies and Cross-Cultural Understanding: A Comparative Analysis of the Indonesian Education System from a Global Perspective

Abstract

The tide of globalization demands that educational systems worldwide cultivate global competence and cross-cultural understanding in a structured and sustained manner. This study aims to comparatively analyze the integration of global competence in Indonesia’s education system relative to globally recognized reference countries, evaluate the effectiveness of Indonesian education policy in developing cross-cultural understanding, and formulate evidence-based strategic recommendations for its enhancement. A Systematic Literature Review (SLR) based on the PRISMA protocol was employed, synthesizing ten indexed scientific articles as primary sources. The findings reveal that Indonesia faces structural barriers, including system centralization, the dominance of standardized testing, and unequal resource distribution, which collectively hinder the holistic development of global competence. Unlike Finland, Japan, and Singapore, which embed global perspectives as cornerstones of their curricula, Indonesia’s approach remains largely reactive and externally driven through the adoption of foreign policies. Strategic factors demonstrably significant include digital literacy, teacher pedagogical autonomy, international collaboration, and the transformation of assessment systems toward authentic competency-based evaluation. This study affirms that deep contextualization is essential in any adoption of global educational practices to ensure alignment with Indonesia’s socio-cultural realities.