Seminar on Academic Writing for International Publication and Presentation – Pusat Pengembangan Bahasa UIN Suska Riau

Decentralization Impacts on
The Educational System in
Indonesia
Bambang Hermanto
(elbarmaq@gmail.com)

Introduction








After Reform, Indonesia has created a decentralized
educational system.
Local government authority has increased in
Education (Ryaas Rasyid, 2003).
Some research has shown that education has
improved because local governments are

responding more through educational budget (R.R.
Simatupang, 2009).
This article concerns how the decentralized system
has effected educational quality, especially how the
budget on educational expenditure influence the
educational quality.

Literature Review
There are inconsistency policies in the
education system in Indonesia (Raihani,
2011)
 The lack of guidelines from the central
government has exacerbated educational
uncertainty (Ryaas Rasyid, 2003)




Is the Indonesia education getting better or
even worse after decentralization??

Methodology
The main data source of this research is
government data particularly data from
Central National Statistic Board
 The data were compared by the official
measurement by the Ministry of Education
and Culture toward educational quality.


Educational Quality After
Reform
One of the basic indicator of educational
quality is the participation index on the
elementary to the university level.
 The elementary level remain steady
 The middle level education which is the
local government authority has been
increased gradually
 The Universities level tends to be

fluctuating


Figure 1. Indonesia`s participation Index 1994-2014
100.0094.06 95.06 96.10
97.39
97.97
98.83
90.00
94.32
84.08
77.16
86.11
79.21
80.00 72.39
70.00
70.13
60.00
45.31 49.28 49.76
53.92

50.00
55.83
40.00
30.00
20.00
12.80
11.53 11.96
10.00
11.64
12.10
0.00
12.70
1994
1998
2002
2006
2010
Source: national
2014
statistic Board 2015

Participation
Participation
Participation
Participation

Index
Index
Index
Index

for elementery level
for junior high school level
forsenior high school level
for universities

Local government Budget on
Education
Percentage of Educational Budget Among The Provinces

20

18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0

Source: national statistic Board 2015

Budget Comparison
From 34 provinces throughout Indonesia, no
one has put 20 percents of its education
budget in the Local Revenue and Expenditure
Budget (APBD), even the Education Act has
mandated that education budget not less than
20%.

 The highest percentage budget on education
is DKI Jakarta (18,4%) and the lowest is Papua
(1%).
 Average budget percentages on educational
expenditure in Indonesia is around 2-6%.


Top 10 Provinces With the Competency Test Results By The Ministry of Education and Culture on 2012
60

50

50.1

49.2

48.9
47.1
45.2

44

43.8

42.7

41.1

41.1

Papua

Banten

40

30

20

10

0
Yogyakarta

DKI. Jakarta

Bali

Jawa Timur

Jawa Tengah Jawa Barat

Riau IslandWest Sumatera

Source: The Ministry of Education and Culture (2012)

Result:
the first top 10 provinces in educational
quality is Yogyakarta which only has spent

its budget 8 % to the educational
expenditure.
 Moreover, Bali the province with only 4 %
for educational spending, it took the third
position in the chart.
 In contrast, Aceh and south Borneo, which
spent more than 8 % of their budget, did
not hit the top 10 list.


Conclusion
After the implementation of decentralization
era, every province has more responsible
about the quality of education.
 The local government has provided budgets
on education but it is not influence to the
quality itself, because there are some
provinces with the lower budget indicated
the better quality.


References
Rentanida Renata Simatupang, Georgia
State University, Economics Dissertations
Department of Economics, 2009
 Ryaas Rasyid, (ed.) Local Power and Politics
in Indonesia, ed. By Edward Aspinall and
Greg Fealy. Singapore: ISEAS, 2003
