It will not realise its potential as one of the world’s major emerging market economies, however, if it relies merely on exploiting its natural resources and its demographic structure. It will need to develop its human capital through education that leads to effective learning and skills formation. It must do so urgently, given the lead that comparator and competitor nations, especially in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) but also in other regions, have over Indonesia on many indicators of physical infrastructure, educational attainment and performance, advanced human capital and research capacity, and the pace and scale at which they are moving ahead.