Amid the disruption of artificial intelligence, social media algorithms, and increasingly complex national challenges, Pancasila education is being called upon to transform. It is no longer enough to teach it as a course oriented toward memorization or normative doctrine; Pancasila must instead serve as an ethics of knowledge that guides how people think, develop scholarship, and solve societal problems.
This idea was presented by UIN Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta Professor Dr. M. Amin Abdullah at the National Symposium on Pancasila Education, themed “Pancasila Education through the Integration of Knowledge, Spirituality, and Nationhood: Strengthening Pancasila Ideology through an Integrative-Interconnective-Transformative Perspective,” organized by UIN Sunan Kalijaga's CIINTRA in collaboration with the Agency for Pancasila Ideology Development (BPIP) on Monday (7/27/2026).
In his presentation titled “Pancasila as an Ethics of Knowledge and National Spirituality,” Prof. Amin opened with a critique of Pancasila education practices that have long leaned heavily toward the political, legalistic, and indoctrinating. He argued this approach is a legacy of an outdated paradigm that treats Pancasila as a set of values to be memorized, leaving little room for students to develop reflective capacity and critical reasoning.
“The historical trauma of one-directional Pancasila instruction has often reduced Pancasila to a slogan rather than a way of thinking,” he said.
Prof. Amin therefore proposed a paradigm shift that positions Pancasila as a living philosophy; one that comes alive in everyday action and decision-making. In his view, Pancasila must serve as the ethical foundation for civil servants, academics, students, scientists, and society at large in confronting the nation's evolving challenges.
Further, Prof. Amin introduced the important idea that Pancasila should be positioned as an epistemological tool in the development of knowledge. In this framing, Pancasila is no longer merely an object of study, but a perspective used to read, critique, and offer solutions to social issues as well as developments in science and technology.
“It is not enough for scientists, teachers, or students to know what Pancasila is, they must be able to use its values as a lens for reading reality.”
He offered the example of how the polarizing effects of social media algorithms could be analyzed through the lens of the principles of Indonesian Unity and Social Justice. Through this approach, knowledge is never understood as value-free but always grounded in ethical and humanistic dimensions.
This idea builds on the Integration-Interconnection paradigm long developed at UIN Sunan Kalijaga, in which Islamic studies, modern science, social science, the humanities, and philosophy do not operate in isolation but engage in dialogue with one another to produce more holistic solutions to societal problems. According to Prof. Amin, Pancasila serves as the meeting point that strengthens this interdisciplinary dialogue while bringing a spiritual dimension into the development of knowledge.
He said this paradigm shift must be accompanied by a reform of teaching methods, criticizing education models still oriented toward lecturing and memorization, the so-called “banking concept of education”, as inadequate to prepare a generation capable of navigating the complexities of the digital world.
As an alternative, Prof. Amin proposed three contemporary learning approaches. First, Phenomenon-Based Learning and the Case-Based Method, which begin instruction with real-world issues, such as deforestation, agrarian conflict, or the ethics of technology, then analyze them through a Pancasila lens to arrive at contextual solutions. Second, Living Lab and Service-Learning, which places students directly within communities through participatory research, support for small and micro enterprises, and digital literacy projects. Third, Socratic Dialogue and Moral Dilemma Scoring, a method built on critical dialogue and moral dilemmas that tests the quality of ethical reasoning rather than mere theoretical recall.
As a consequence, Prof. Amin said, Pancasila education needs curricular reorientation. Pancasila courses should no longer stand alone but should be interconnected with each field of study (medicine, computer engineering, economics, and Islamic studies alike) so students learn to apply Pancasila values within the context of the profession and discipline they intend to pursue.
Toward the end of his presentation, Prof. Amin linked the Integration-Interconnection paradigm to Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). He explained that CDA can serve as an important instrument within the Integration-Interconnection paradigm, helping scholars critically examine the relationships among text, power, and social reality.
He described the Integration-Interconnection paradigm as the broad framework that brings together religious studies, science, social science, and the humanities, while CDA functions as one methodological approach within it that can be used to expose social inequality, domination, and hidden injustices embedded within discourse.
“The Integration-Interconnection paradigm is the house; Critical Discourse Analysis is one of the scalpels that operates within it.”
For UIN Sunan Kalijaga, Prof. Amin Abdullah's ideas represent more than a proposed teaching methodology; they reaffirm the university's academic identity, rooted from the outset in the Integration-Interconnection paradigm. In the context of Pancasila education, this paradigm creates space for the values of divinity, humanity, nationhood, and justice to move beyond normative concepts and become a living ethics of knowledge; one that guides the development of science, technology, and public policy for the wellbeing of society. (humassk)