Key national education programmes

118 graduate. Using Ebtanas, a student’s graduation is determined by a combination of grades from their first semester, second semester, and their Ebtanas result. The UN, however, sets required score thresholds across a range of subjects in order for the student to graduate from primary school as well as from junior and senior secondary school. With the commencement of UAN in 2002, every junior and senior secondary school student had to obtain an overall average of 3.0 out of a possible 10.0 for the three core subjects of mathematics, English and Bahasa Indonesia. The threshold was raised every year and by 2009, students could only graduate if they managed to obtain an average overall grade of 5.5.

4.3 Education system and institutional setting

The education system in Indonesia follows a ‘six-three-three’ framework comprising: a six years of primary education; b three years of junior secondary education; and c three years of senior secondary education. Senior secondary education is divided into general and vocational streams. 2 Compulsory basic education in Indonesia consists of six years of primary school and three years of junior secondary school, for a total of at least nine years of schooling. Early childhood education ECE and senior secondary school education are not compulsory according to national law. The national education system applies to both state and private schools. In addition, there are also Islamic schools, called madrasah. While regular schools are under the supervision of the Ministry of National Education, the madrasah are supervised by the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Islamic teaching is the foundation of the curriculum. As with regular schools, there are also state and private madrasah. In addition, there are also other private religious schools. The non-Islamic religious-based private schools are under the supervision of Ministry of National Education and have to follow the national curriculum, but may include additional courses emphasizing religious studies. In terms of the number of schools, regular non- religious state schools accounted for the vast majority of schools at the primary level, but less than half of those at senior secondary level. The majority of madrasah, at all levels of schooling, are run privately by Islamic foundations Table 4.6. Nearly all ECE kindergarten or preschool institutions are operated by private foundations. Table 4.5: Indonesia’s formal education system Source:฀Calculated฀using฀data฀from฀the฀Ministry฀of฀National฀Education฀and฀Ministry฀of฀Religion฀Affairs Level Pre-school ECE Primary school Junior secondary Senior secondary Age years 3–6 7–12 13–15 16–18 Grades 1–6 7–9 10–12 Regular school TKPAUD SD SMP SMA Islamic school Raudatul Atfal RA Madrasah Ibtidaiah MI Madrasah Tsanawiah MTs Madrasah Aliah MA Types of schools State Private Total Table 4.6: Number of schools and madrasah, 20082009 Source:฀Ministry฀of฀National฀Education฀website฀[www.kepmendiknas.go.id]฀and฀Ministry฀of฀Trade฀website฀ [www.kemendag.go.id]฀accessed฀11฀November฀2010 Primary level Junior secondary level Senior secondary level SD MI SMP MTs SMA MA 131,490 1,567 16,898 1,259 4,797 644 91 7 59 10 45 12 12,738 19,621 11,879 11,624 5,965 4,754 9 93 41 90 55 88 144,228 21,188 28,777 12,883 10,762 5,398 2 Higher education is beyond the scope of this analysis. 119 Nationally, the discrepancies in the numbers of schools available at different educational levels are very apparent Table 4.6. In 2008, 91.9 per cent of all villages and urban precincts kelurahan had a primary school, but only 41.8 per cent had a junior secondary school and only 19.9 per cent had a senior secondary school. If we compare the availability of education facilities disaggregated by urban and rural areas and by province, there are also large disparities in terms of the availability of schools at each educational level. In 2008, 96.2 per cent of urban precincts had at least one primary school, 70.7 per cent had a junior secondary school and 55.9 per cent had one or more senior secondary school. In contrast, while 91.2 per cent of villages in rural areas had a primary school, only 37.9 per cent and 15.5 per cent had a junior and senior secondary school, respectively see Table 4.7. By province, Papua, West Papua, Aceh and East Nusa Tenggara NTT had the lowest average number of schools per village, while Jakarta and Yogyakarta provinces major cities have the highest average number see Figure 4.1. In terms of average distance to schools, access problems were still apparent in rural areas. While the average distance to junior and senior secondary schools from urban areas with no local schools was 2.13 kilometres and 3.39 kilometres, respectively, in 2008, the average distance from rural areas was 8.18 kilometres and 13.1 kilometres for junior and senior schools, respectively see Table 4.7. In some remote villages access to primary schools was also still a problem; some primary school students in the provinces of Papua, Papua Barat, or NTT had to walk more than 10 kilometres to go to school. The availability and distance to school had some influence on the students’ motivation and households’ decisions about attending school. Beside the formal regular schools, there are also non-formal educational ‘packages’ available for those who cannot access these. Learning Package A Paket฀A is equivalent to primary school education, Learning Package B Paket฀B is equivalent to junior secondary school level, and Learning Package C Paket฀C is equivalent to senior secondary school. Features distinguishing non-formal from formal education include flexibility of the former in terms of schedule and time spent on studies, easier access long- distance learning, the age of the learners, the content of the lessons relatively easier and more practical, the way the lessons are organized, and the methods of assessment. 2005 2005 2005 2008 2008 2008 Villages with no schools Average number of schools per village Average distance to schools km Table 4.7: Availability and accessibility of schools in urban and rural areas, 2005 and 2008 Source:฀Podes,฀village-level฀data,฀2005฀and฀2008 Note:฀Average฀distance฀from฀villages฀with฀no฀schools฀ Primary level Indonesia Urban Rural Junior secondary level Indonesia Urban Rural Senior secondary level Indonesia Urban Rural 10.43 4.21 11.76 66.60 40.76 72.18 83.78 54.04 90.12 8.14 3.76 8.77 58.15 29.32 62.05 80.07 44.04 84.51 2.36 3.92 2.03 0.48 1.13 0.34 0.27 0.97 0.12 2.65 4.57 2.39 0.68 1.58 0.55 0.34 1.30 0.22 5.99 1.09 6.36 8.97 1.65 9.85 14.41 2.89 16.04 5.92 1.13 6.12 7.82 2.13 8.18 12.51 3.39 13.16 120 Since the implementation of decentralization in 2001, the provision of and control over the formal and non-formal education systems have been devolved to district governments, with the exception of madrasah, which are still controlled centrally by the Ministry of Religious Affairs via the branch offices at the provincial and district levels. The role of the central government is limited to defining the national educational standards and devising policies to guarantee the quality of and equal access to education. Provincial governments, on the other hand, are responsible for providing education facilities and teacher training, and for handling all educational matters that are particular to the province or districts. Source:฀Podes,฀2005฀and฀2008 Note฀:฀฀New฀province,฀no฀data฀for฀2005 Figure 4.1: Average number of senior secondary schools per villageprecinct, 2005 and 2008 Jakarta Yogyakarta Banten West Nusa Tenggara West Sumatra West Java East Java Lampung Riau Archipelago North Sumatra East Kalimantan Bangka Belitung Island Bali Riau West Kalimantan Indonesia South Sumatra Jambi Maluku Central Java South Sulawesi Central Sulawesi West Sulawesi Central Kalimantan North Maluku South Kalimantan Gorontalo North Sulawesi Southeast Sulawesi Bengkulu East Nusa Tenggara Aceh West Papua Papua 4.208955 0.0641201 2008 Average Numbers of School per Village 2005 1 2 3 4 5 Decentralization implies the delegation of authority not only from central to regional governments, but also from the government to the community. For that reason, almost every school state and private now has a school committee. School committee members include parents, teachers and local community representatives. The main responsibilities of school committees include contributing to the school decision-making process, controlling the school’s accountability in accordance with the school budget, and providing financial support when necessary. In practice, however, the performance of each school committee varies widely depending on the agendas and personalities of the committee chairperson and the school principal. 121

4.4 Budget for education

Education in Indonesia is financed by the central, provincial and district governments’ budgets as well as parental and community contributions. As a commitment to implementing the policy on education and the constitutional stipulation to allocate 20 per cent of the budget to education, the central government has increased its education budget. The education share of national expenditure has grown by 180 per cent in five years, from 7.2 per cent in 2006 to 20.2 per cent in 2011, and the education share of GDP has increased by 142 per cent from 1.4 per cent in 2006 to 3.4 per cent in 2010 Figure 4.2. It should be noted that 20 per cent of the allocated education budget also includes an allocation for routine administrative expenditure; mainly teacher salaries. Since higher education university or college is beyond the scope of this analysis, we disaggregate the total budget allocation and only analyise the budgets for ECE, and primary and secondary schools. Figure 4.3 shows that from 2006 to 2010, the overall average budget for compulsory basic education nine years of primary and junior secondary combined decreased even though it still consumed the largest proportion 40–50 per cent of the education budget. The budget for senior secondary education also decreased while the ECE budget allocation has gradually increased. 5 10 Per cent 15 1.4 1.4 1.3 3.7 3.4 7.2 2005 2006 Percentage of total Central Government Budget Percentage of GDP Nominal 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 7.4 6.3 20.0 20.0 20.2 20 25 Figure 4.2: Central government budget for education as a proportion of total government expenditure and of nominal GDP, 2006–2011 Source:฀฀National฀Revenue฀and฀Expenditure฀Budget฀APBN฀various฀years;฀Ministry฀of฀Finance. Similar to other sectors, the central government spending on education is channeled through two mechanisms. Firstly, funds are allocated to the line ministries particularly to the Ministry of National Education and the Ministry of Religious Affairs and are mainly intended to fund routine education expenditures especially for madrasah schools managed by the Ministry of Religious Affairs and development spending school operational costs, scholarships, textbooks, etc.. Secondly, funds are transferred directly to district governments. Since 2009, there has been a significant increase in the central government’s budget allocation for education. This is because the central government has shifted some of the funds previously transferred to districts in the form of ‘general allocation funds’ dana alokasi umum, DAU to a fund that is specifically allocated for education dana alokasi khusus pendidikan , DAK. This increase in the funds allocated specifically for education is what enabled the government to reach its goal of 20 per cent of total national expenditure for education. As for local governments, their spending on education, outside of the DAK-pendidikan, varied among districts and municipalities. Even though it is stated clearly in the constitution that the central and local governments should allocate a minimum of 20 per cent of their budgets to 122 Figure 4.3: Central government education budget allocated directly to children, 2006–2010 ฀Source:฀APBN,฀various฀years;฀Ministry฀of฀Finance. 2006 60 50 40 50.0 9.3 0.7 42.8 8.2 0.9 43.0 43.4 37.5 9-year basic education Senior secondary education Early childhood education 7.5 8.7 6.6 0.9 0.8 1.3 30 20 10 Per cent 2007 2008 2009 2010 education, in practice the budget allocations for education were determined mostly by the commitment of local leaders to the development of education. A study on provincial and district city budgets showed that out of 27 districts and cities studied, 24 already allocated more than 20 per cent of their 2010 budgets to education, including some which allocated more than 30 per cent. 3 Meanwhile, at the provincial level, on average in the four provinces studied the allocations for education were less than 8 per cent The Asia Foundation, 2010 In addition to government funding, significant funding also comes from the community, particularly from parents and students. While nine years of basic education is compulsory and free, this only applies to state schools. Most of the education expenses at private schools are paid for by parents, with the amount being determined by the school’s board of trustees after consultation with the school committee. 4 In state schools, even though the government has guaranteed to cover all operational costs for basic education primary and junior secondary, a lack of funding for necessary school activities and development initiatives make it necessary for most state schools to collect some fees from parents upon consultation with school committees. These include fees for things such as books, photocopying, extracurricular activities and school maintenance. In addition, parents still have to bear some indirect expenses related to their children’s education, namely transportation costs and pocket money. A study by SMERU Hastuti et.al., 2010, for example, revealed that many children refused to go to school if their parents did not provide them with lunch money.

4.5 Educational outcomes, disparities and gender inequality

An increasing number and proportion of Indonesian children have been enrolling at schools, from early childhood education ECE up to senior secondary school. As shown in Table 4.8, during 2003–2009 the increase in enrolment rates for ECE among children 3–6 years old was the highest 5.94 percentage points per year, followed by enrolment rates among children aged 16–17 in senior secondary school 3.13 percentage points per year. But despite the notable rate of increase, the proportion of children aged 16–17 years enrolled in senior secondary school in 2009 was still relatively low at around 67.2 per cent, and the proportion enrolled in ECE was even lower, at 32.25 3 This allocation included teacher salaries, which accounted for about 80 per cent of the education budget. 4 The percentages of children enrolled at private schools in 2010 were: 18 per cent at the primary level, 32 per cent at the junior secondary level, 35 per cent at senior secondary schools, and 56 per cent at vocational secondary schools.