Exciting news comes from the Master's Program in Mathematics Education. Two students, Isna Sofiatun and Hery Nugroho, have been selected as authors of a book chapter in an event organized by the Education Research Center of the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN). This book chapter is part of a collaboration between BRIN, Malang State University, and Hiroshima University through the “Call for Book Chapter” program themed “Decolonizing Education Through Formal, State, and Non-State Actors.”

The program is open to academics, students, teachers, and education communities, with two main subthemes: the role of formal or state actors, and the role of non-state actors in the process of decolonizing education. Seeing this opportunity, Isna and Hery decided to participate in this activity as a productive way to spend their second semester break.

Their article is titled “Ethnomathematics: Bridging the Decolonization of Mathematics through Javanese Indigenous Peoples to Predict Good Days in Farming.” Through this work, they aim to demonstrate that the decolonization of mathematics education can be achieved through ethnomathematics-based learning. They highlighted the Javanese tradition of determining auspicious days for farming using the pranata mangsa and neptu systems, then reconstructed these concepts into mathematics education through the ethnomodeling method. From this research, they developed a Teacher Pedagogical Transformation (TPR) framework consisting of three phases: Hegemonic Deconstruction Phase, Ethnomathematics Recontextualization Phase, and Teacher Pedagogical Transformation Phase.

Isna revealed that the process they went through was quite long and challenging. The article was drafted from December to early January 2025. The selection results were announced on January 15, 2025, followed by the International Symposium and First Writing Workshop on January 22–23, 2025. Unfortunately, Isna and Hery could only participate in this event online due to financial constraints.

On January 31, 2025, both received feedback from reviewers on the presented articles, which was then followed up in a Pre-Workshop on June 4, 2025. This activity aimed to align the authors' perceptions and minimize overlap in content between articles through peer review sessions. The highlight was the main workshop held at Malang State University on June 16, 2025, which Isna and Hery also attended online. Currently, both are awaiting the publication process for the book chapter, which is planned to be published by Routledge, one of the leading academic publishers.

At the end of the story, Isna expressed her gratitude for the support from the Department of Mathematics Education. She also hopes that in the future, there will be more tangible support from the university for students actively involved in extracurricular activities, such as through funding allocations to support participation in national and international scientific forums.

“Activities like this are very beneficial for personal development and academic contributions. Hopefully, more students will be able to participate in the future,” Isna concluded. (Isna/HnR)