When the founders of the nation proclaimed the independence of Indonesia, the form of the Pancasila State was just an ideal. Therefore, every state organizer must work hard to realize the ideal. In the Preamble of the 1945 Constitution of the State of the Republic of Indonesia (1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia), the fourth paragraph expressly states that in achieving the ideal, the Indonesian government must (1) protect the entire Indonesian nation and the entire Indonesian blood sphere, (2) promote general welfare, (3) educate the life of the people, and (4) participate in the implementation of a world order based on freedom, eternal peace and social justice. In an effort to realize them, the government organizes national development.

National development is considered successful when it has reached an optimal balance between two of the most extreme national interests, which seem to attract each other. First, the efforts to strengthen the sovereignty of the state both inward and outward. Second, the efforts to strengthen the nation's competitiveness (outward looking). In this context, all components of the nation agree that education plays the most decisive role in the success or failure of the national development. Inspired by the founding fathers of the nation, it is believed that the right kind of education is the one that can educate the life of the nation, i.e. making them intelligent. Intelligence in this context means a society and nation with an increasingly advanced and modern life. To make it happen, the development of the national education system has to be able to encourage the ongoing transformation of traditional culture into modern culture and from feudal culture to democratic culture (Sudijarto, 2013). A number of countries that are now developed countries, especially those having a state philosophy embodied in the constitution of their country and a solid political life, are countries, which, since their independence, have placed education as the foundation of state development (Suryadi, et al., 2013).

Indonesia, since its independence, has been conducting citizenship education program. Yet, there seems to be various issues related to the behavior aspects of the citizens. 74 years of independent Indonesia, the ideal of the state to create a modern and advanced society is still far from being realized. The behavior of some people is still far from the ideal values of life of Indonesian society, which is known for its great culture. In this culture, communities should ideally live in harmony: a life full of tolerance, respect, and consideration among different citizens, a reflection of the state motto "Bhinneka Tunggal Ika". Unfortunately, nowadays the conducts of some Indonesian are far from such great values: selfishness, insincerity, subservience, lack of seriousness, and other negative characteristics prevail. These characteristics manifest themselves in negative behavior of the people: blaming other people for their own mistakes, breaking promises, reckless driving, corruption, inter-ethnic violence, etc. At the educational context, where the opposite would normally be expected, the picture is unfortunately rather grim. There have been, for example, many cases of (violent) street fighting among students, which sometimes have resulted in some casualties (Budimansyah, 2012). It begs the question of what happens to our education. It is a serious question that values, moral, and character education has to address immediately and appropriately. This is precisely what the Annual Civic Education Conference (ACEC 2019) addresses.

ACEC 2019 features the views of national and international experts and observers in the field of Civic/Citizenship. The conference embraces eleven themes, each elaborated in a number of papers outlining the deepest thoughts to understand civic/citizenship education issues and their future development strategies. In addition, there are six keynote presentations conveyed by Dr. Erica Larson (Boston University, USA) and five invited speakers: Associate Professor Dr. Sulfikar Amir (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore), Prof. Dr. Ir. Samsul Rizal, M.Eng (Rector of Syiah Kuala University, Banda Aceh, Indonesia), Ir. Nova Iriansyah, M.T. (Governor of Aceh), Prof. Ace Suryadi, M.Sc., Ph.D. (Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia), and Freddy K. Kalidjernih, Ph.D. (Visiting lecturer, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia).

In the Book of Abstract, of course, the various thoughts are only presented in brief. The full edition of the authors' works will be presented in full papers to be published in an indexed conference proceeding. We hope that this conference effort will benefit the people of Indonesia and the world.

August 27-29, 2019
Technical Chairperson of Annual Civic Education Conference 2019
Prof. Dr. Kokom Komalasari, M.Pd.