Decentralization of education in Indonesia

ED/EPS/2006/RP/12b September 2006

Decentralization of Education in Indonesia

Country Report at the UNESCO Seminar on “EFA Implementation: Teacher and

Resource Management in the Context of Decentralization”

Administrative Staff College of India, Hyderabad, India, 6-8 January 2005

Teacher and Resource Management in the Context of Decentralization

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In this series: Country Reports: Egypt Indonesia Mozambique Nigeria Pakistan Thematic Reports: SIASAT

Education policies and strategies

UNESCO Seminar on

EFA Implementation: Teacher and Resource Management in the Context of

Decentralization

Administrative Staff College of India Hyderabad, India 6-8 January 2005

Organizer: UNESCO


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This series carries in extenso the national report of the country representatives presented at the UNESCO Seminar on Implementing Education for All: Teacher and Resource Management in the Context of Decentralization, held in Hyderabad (India) from 6 to 8 January 2005. Organized by UNESCO, with assistance from the Administrative Staff College of India, Hyderabad, and the National Institute for Educational Planning and Administration, New Delhi, the seminar was attended by over fifty participants, including two national representatives from each of the E-9 countries (Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria and Pakistan) as well as Mozambique. Any part of this paper may be freely reproduced with the appropriate acknowledgement. The authors are responsible for the choice and presentation of the facts contained in this book and for the opinions expressed therein, which are not necessarily those of UNESCO and do not commit the Organization.

UNESCO expert, Abby Riddell, contributed to the planning and design of the seminar as well as the design and writing of this compendium volume. Published in 2006 by: Division of Educational Policies and Strategies United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization 7, place de Fontenoy, 75352 Paris 07 SP (France) © UNESCO Website: http://www.unesco.org/education/eps/ Rubric: Experience Sharing

http://www.unesco.org/education/eps

Contents

Introduction...........................................................................................1 Context ......................................................................................................... 1 Common issues raised.................................................................................. 3 Acknowledgements ...................................................................................... 6

Decentralization of Education in Indonesia .......................................9 I. An Overview of Indonesia's Education Reform ...................................... 9 II. Teacher deployment and resource mobilization and management........ 14 III. Lesson learnt and road map for sustaining ongoing reforms .............. 67

Annexes ................................................................................................71 Annex 1: Report Guidelines....................................................................... 72 Annex 2: The Programme of the Seminar.................................................. 75

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Introduction The Dakar Framework for Action invited national governments to develop Plans of Action on Education for All (EFA) before the end of 2002. In response to this call, many countries have developed or strengthened existing sector plans for the achievement of EFA and have begun implementing them. However, experience has shown that at the time of developing their plans, some countries have had difficulties in defining workable strategies and translating them into clear-cut operational and reform actions. Delays have been due to lack of experience in the subject. UNESCO supports the strengthening of national capacities not only by providing countries with expertise, but also by facilitating exchanges of national experience among countries from different regions of the world. The dissemination of experience and good practice is one of the means of transferring technical know-how and skills and can help national managers to identify practical solutions which best answer the problems arising from their own education systems. The issue of governance and decentralization is one of the issues most frequently raised by country representatives and other stakeholders at various national and international events and is often referred to as one of the factors affecting the success of EFA implementation. This is particularly true in countries with federal systems and the E-9 countries, where governance is a major issue of concern within their decentralized administrative and institutional settings. Organizing an international seminar for these countries on the pressing issue of governance promotes not only South-South cooperation, facilitating the sharing of their experiences and best practices, but it also helps them to design and implement their own country-specific strategies for accelerating the achievement of EFA.

Context Decentralization has become a virtual mantra of development, emphasized increasingly as the market, as opposed to the state, has been allowed to


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exercise its influence on public policy. Taken to the extreme, this has entailed the privatization of formerly state-run activities such as health or education, but in between complete centralization and privatization are various types of decentralization. These have commonly and increasingly involved the use of performance assessment and results-based management as a means of exerting state influence while still allowing for multiple nodes of decision-making. Such assessment and management practices have thus become part of the panoply of tools that government uses to regulate an increasingly decentralized environment. Many different arguments are used in support of educational decentralization, not least to ensure that decisions made closest to the educational beneficiaries result in policies tailored to their particular contexts and requirements. Other arguments in support of decentralization stem from a desire to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of educational management. Large, cumbersome, centralized bureaucracies can be slow and unresponsive. Further arguments for decentralization are based on political expediency, to transfer the responsibility for educational decisions – and commonly, the accompanying finance – away from the national government. Thus, decentralization can be used as a means of supplementing inadequate national resources. Whatever the reasons behind educational decentralization, it is also important to distinguish between different types of decentralization. There are many patterns. Some involve merely a déconcentration of tasks, creating a regional office that mirrors the national ministry. Some involve the delegation of responsibility, where decisions taken at the centre are carried out by those delegated authority at a lower level. And other types of decentralization involve outright devolution, in which the responsibility for decision-making is transferred to a lower level. In addition, some educational decentralization involves all educational management and administration, while others focus on particular sections, allocating responsibility for different tasks to different levels of the administration. For example, teacher deployment and finance may remain at the centre while textbook ordering and distribution may be the responsibility of a local office. Two key areas of educational decentralization that have extensive ramifications for the achievement of EFA are teacher management and deployment; and financial resource generation and management. How decisions are reached on the allocation of human and financial resources across the various levels of decentralization in different countries will have a major impact on the provision and quality of educational services. Whether

Introduction

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district or regional education officers are empowered and enabled to make decisions concerning the targeting of key educational resources will contribute to the responsiveness of the education system to local conditions and needs and will influence the provision of quality education for all. Different countries have worked out different arrangements across the levels of responsibility for educational administration and management to deal with governance in these key areas. Some of the actual arrangements are highly dependent on particular contexts and inappropriate for replication elsewhere. For this reason, the seminar focused on governance and not merely on decentralization. The issues of common interest, whatever the nature of decentralization, concern how decisions are reached, based on what information, with what accountability, in turn based on what information. Analysis of the effectiveness of systems of governance is also of common interest: how are they judged to be effective? Does the system deliver on its promises and achieve its targets? And, finally, how have the capacities been developed of those staff given decentralized, governance responsibilities over teacher deployment and management and resource mobilization and management? An outline of the questions to be answered in each national report was distributed and formed the basis for the countries’ submissions (Annex 1).

Common issues raised Four common issues can be identified across the reports prepared for the seminar: • weak fiscal decentralization; • compensatory role of central government; • rationalization of allocation and deployment of teachers; • school-based management. Weak fiscal decentralization

The national reports describe various forms and contexts of decentralization – to states, to districts, to municipalities, and to local communities and school committees. Responsibilities and authority for delivering educational services at all these different levels vary considerably. However, an underlying issue concerns the sourcing of funds for any such services and the accompanying management of service delivery. The Indian national report states succinctly:


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When decentralization in education takes the form of deconcentration, it is very difficult to ensure accountability of local administrative units and support structures.

Issues of control versus legitimacy are raised. If teachers’ salaries are paid by the state and not the local authorities, and if resource allocation decisions are made in the state capital, for example through conditional grants, how is the necessary accountability to the beneficiaries of the education provided at decentralized levels to be developed? The national reports also cover many different types of fiscal decentralization. Some countries use block grants; others, such as Bangladesh, earmark funds; some set financial norms for the percentage of fiscal revenue to go to education, and so on. Indeed, the Pakistan national report points out how incomplete decentralization to the district level, entailing mainly earmarked finance, has created too few delegated powers regarding resource allocation decision-making. The national report of Brazil also elaborates this point:

Unsuccessful results have involved the transfer of responsibilities without any guarantee of the necessary reallocation of financial resources. Such situations have reinforced proposals such as FUNDEB and its important redistributive characteristic, i.e. guaranteeing the transfer of financial resources, the key to reducing education inequalities in the country.

Compensatory role of central government The national reports describe various mechanisms used for equalizing resources in areas having weak fiscal capacities, for example financial transfers, which, like the block or conditional grants generally used, commonly take the form of transfers to regions according to specified minimum standards. The Chinese national report well illustrates the different roles taken by central and state governments. Initially the policy shift to a socialist market economy resulted in a heavy burden on peasants who had to pay educational surtaxes as part of a drive for the diversification and mobilization of resources. The shift in responsibilities for resource mobilization to the counties re-established the compensatory role of central and state government, which subsidized poorer counties.

Introduction

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In addition, several of the national reports describe the financial targeting as well as the differentiation of educational services of particular, marginalized groups. One of the implicit questions raised is what should be the role of the state – at whatever level – in subsidizing marginalized groups or regions, when such subsidies are by their nature economically inefficient and unlikely to be self-sustaining. Rationalization of allocation and deployment of teachers

Without exception, all the national reports focused on the challenges that decentralization posed for rationalizing the allocation and deployment of teachers. This issue is closely related to teachers’ qualifications, status, support and professional development, and their integration within local communities. Notwithstanding the fact that bringing teacher management closer to the schools typically results in fewer delays in salary payments and the potential for enhanced local supervision and support, decentralization, in some countries, has created artificial barriers between states or districts, making it difficult if not impossible for states experiencing teacher shortages to draw on surplus teachers from other states. Additionally, as described in the Nigerian national report, the decentralization of teacher management has been clouded by ‘parochial and ethnic sentiments’, as well as poor supervision due to greater familiarity. The inability of many countries to afford the necessary complement of fully qualified teachers has led some, such as Indonesia, to implement zero-growth policies, while allowing the relaxation of qualifications and the hiring of contract teachers. This phenomenon appears as community or private provision such as PTA teachers in Nigeria, para-teachers in India, minban teachers in China, temporary teachers in Egypt, etc., and has wrought havoc with wage negotiations with teachers’ unions, given the different conditions of employment applied to such contracted, temporary teachers outside the civil service. Mexico’s decentralization has afforded a different pathway: it has included an element of state-level wage negotiation under more general, national agreements, together with a complex system of financial incentives for teachers that are tied to school progress as well as school performance factors. Particularly under wages and conditions of service that are insufficient for raising a family, teacher absenteeism, unsurprisingly, is another common issue discussed in many of the national reports, a partial answer to which


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leads to another common, important issue raised in most of the national reports: school-based management. School-based management

School-based management – within many different decentralized state structures – is featured as a promising pathway exemplified by both state initiatives and pilot programmes of external development partners. In some countries direct resource allocations are made to schools (e.g. in Mexico, and in Mozambique, under the auspices of a World Bank project). In others, such as Indonesia, such resource transfers are envisaged in the long term. Community involvement of a different sort, that of tailoring curriculum, language development and specific courses to marginalized groups, is the focus of the two thematic reports prepared for the seminar.

Acknowledgements The national representatives who participated in the seminar include Akhtary Khanam and Abdus Sattar (Bangladesh); Oroslinda Maria Taranto Goulart and Maria Isabel Azevedo Noronha (Brazil); Wang Libing and Zhu Xudong (China); Hisham Abdel Muniem Al Sayed Al Sankari and Salah Eldin Mohamed Shater (Egypt); Smt. Prerna Gulati and K. K. Biswal (India); Jalal Fasli and Ella Yulaelawati (Indonesia); Jose Gutierrez Garcia and Leticia Gabriela Landeros Aguirre (Mexico); Paula Maria Guiao de Mendonca and Moises Celestino Matavele (Mozambique); Charles Maduegbuna Anikweze and E. O. Oga (Nigeria); T. M. Qureshi and Mohammad Saleem (Pakistan). In addition, we were fortunate to have presentations from K. M. Acharya, Joint Secretary and Kumud Bansal, Secretary, Elementary Education and Literacy, Ministry of Human Resource Development, New Delhi; Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy, Chief Minister, Mohan Kanda, Chief Secretary, and S. Chellappa, Principal Secretary (Education), State Government of Andhra Pradesh. Our thanks go to all, including the other report writers/presenters of the synthesis report and the two thematic reports: R. Govinda, National Institute for Educational Planning and Administration, I. Subba Rao, Principal Secretary (Health, formerly Education), and Zahid Ali Khan, The Siasat Daily. Finally, we must thank the Administrative Staff College of India, S. K. Rao and Gautam Pingle for their contributions, not least to the logistics of the seminar itself.

Introduction

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UNESCO expert, Abby Riddell, contributed to the planning and design of the seminar as well as the design and writing of this compendium volume. The originality of the seminar, which gave rise to the present publication, lies in creating a stimulating and rich dialogue between planners and administrators. This dialogue, although taken for granted, usually constitutes a stumbling block at local level where education administrators or civil service managers are the key coordinators of the implementation process. The latter are not always fully equipped to carry out this task effectively. The collaboration between the two national institutes, namely NIEPA based in Delhi and ASCI based in Hyderabad, provided the seminar with a broad combination of education planning expertise as well as corporate management and public administration techniques. The participation of media involved in educational programmes added a third and rich dimension. Though the seminar addressed issues common to the E9 countries, the experience of Mozambique in donor mobilization and coordination was highly appreciated. Through this publication, UNESCO hopes to disseminate more widely the lessons drawn from the experiences of the participating countries to specialists in other countries. The different contributions that we present here can play a part in nurturing useful reflection and debate to improve planning and implementation of education policies in other countries striving to overcome the challenge of attaining the goals of Education for All.

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Decentralization of Education in Indonesia

I. An Overview of Indonesia's Education Reform

a. Population, geography and reforms in Indonesia Indonesia is the largest island nation in the world. Its 17,000 islands form an archipelago that bridges the continents of Australia and Asia. The total landmass, which includes five major islands, is 2 million square kilometres. Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world after China, India, and the United States. In 1999, its estimated population was 210 million, up from 179 million in 1990. The average annual rate of population growth was 2.1 percent during the 1980s, but it declined to 1.5 percent by 1999. The rate is projected to decline slightly further to 1.4 percent by 2005. In absolute terms, this means that the Indonesian population grew by around 3.2 million persons per year between 1990 and 1998, and will increase by roughly 3 million annually until 2005. By year 2004, children below the age of five are about 21.2 million, or 10 percent of the population and the school-age children (5 to 14 years) will number 42.2 million, or about 20 percent of the total population. Today, one in every five Indonesians is a teenager. Indonesia’s population is aging; school-age children under age 15 as a percentage of the total population have decreased from about 43.2 billion in 2000 to 41.4 billion in 2004. This indicates the success of family planning program. The data indicates that Indonesia’s population of school-age children is one of the largest in the world. In the transition from New Order rule, 1999 to the present, the national government of Indonesia has been launching radically democratising policies in the areas of electoral politics, governance and education. Politically these have included the decentralisation laws transferring responsibility in core functions from the centre to Indonesia’s district governments; constitutional reforms strengthening electoral control of Parliament and direct election of the president, vice president, and heads of district governments. In education, the national five year program has mandated participative school-based management and a new curriculum framework based on competency attainment in all school subjects. The competency curriculum is advocated as


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fulfilling the localisation objectives of decentralisation. Decentralisation is justified in the policy rhetoric as building community capacity for democracy through localisation of government. And the logic of decentralisation that legitimates local government marches right on to the school, requiring authority and resources transfer from the district departments of education to school communities in the interests of plurality and participative governance. b. Education structure The national education system is based on the country's 1945 constitution and the state ideology called Pancasila, which encompasses the five principles of the state's philosophy. Education follows a 6-3-3 framework at primary and secondary levels. Education consists of both state and private institutions. Private institutions comprise a significant portion of the country's primary, secondary and tertiary institutions. At some levels, the private sector forms the majority of institutions. Private schools play a significant role in Indonesian education, particularly at the post-primary level. Madrasah education under the Ministry of Religion Affair (MORA) is also a significant component of the education system. The madrasah handle more than 10% of the total national student enrolment. The education and training sector also includes non-formal, professional, and out-of-school education. Compulsory basic education in Indonesia lasts for nine years and consists of two parts; six years of primary school, and three years of junior secondary school. Senior secondary education consists of three years and is divided into vocational and general streams. Pre-primary education or kindergarten level is known as Taman Kanak-kanak (TK), and is not compulsory. In addition to Taman Kanak-kanak there is an early childhood education (Pendidikan Anak Usia Dini/PAUD. The official language of instruction is Bahasa Indonesia. Tertiary education includes both academic and vocational streams and students may choose between four-year academic degree programs and vocational non-degree programs of study which last for one to four years. There are four primary types of tertiary institution: University or institute (Universitas, Institut); Academy (Akademi); Polytechnic (Politeknik); and Advanced School (Sekolah tinggi).

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c. The EFA challenges

While maintaining and improving enrolment levels during the crisis is perhaps the greatest threat to the Indonesian education system, several other obstacles hamper efforts at quality improvement. Equity within the education system remains a topic of great concern. Socio-economic status does affect access to quality education and the poor generally have worse access than those who are wealthy do. Geographic inequities also remain a persistent problem. Many parts of the country are extremely remote. This fact causes problems in resource allocation and in quality control. Resource shortages plague the system with problems in textbook procurement and provision of adequate facilities. Teacher quality has been another constant challenge, and average numbers of qualified teachers remain low. Teaching and learning strategies employ fairly old-fashioned approaches to classroom instruction, and the total number of instructional hours in the school year is well behind international averages. Human resources development is one of the strategic efforts for national development. Experiences of the new emerging industrialized countries in East Asia have indicated the necessity that there be a critical mass in the area of education for the improvement of a national development. This means that there should be an attempt to build a certain percentage of the population with a specified level of education to nationally prepare a fast national economic and social development that can only be achieved with the support from high quality human resources. The 9-year basic education program is one of the government’s efforts to create the critical mass. The program is implemented to build an Indonesian nation with, at least, basic knowledge and skills. This basic competence should enable graduates to either continue their schooling or start earning a living in the society. With the competence, people should be able to choose and utilize high-tech products, to interact and compete with others as well as with other nations. Therefore, the implementation of the 9-year basic education program is aimed not only at reaching a targeted maximum participation rate but also at improving the quality of basic education which, at present, is below the national standard. It is expected that the 9-year basic education program could also reach disadvantaged children: children living in remote areas, children from societies lacking awareness on the importance of education, children from


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poor families, children from conflict areas and children with disabilities. Additionally, attention should also be given to girls because studies indicated that girls’ participation rate is lower than boys’. The 9- year education program, set up in 1994, was planned for completion by the end of 2003/2004. This was intended as preparation for Indonesia to enter the global market: AFTA (Asia Free Trade Area) in 2003 and APEC in 2010. With the national crises the country is now facing, it seems that the plan will not materialize and a number of constraints arises including: • The high rate of children aged 7-15 without education (3.6 millions)

including the graduates of primary schools (SD/MI) who did not continue to junior high schools (SLTP/MT). This makes up 26% of the overall number of the graduates annually.

• The very high rate of dropouts from the 9-year basic education program. In year 2000/2001, there were approximately 1,267,000 dropouts: 929,700 from primary schools (SD/MI) and 338,000 from junior high schools (SLTP/MTs.).

• The high rate of retention among SD/MI students (1.51 millions in year 2000/2001) in comparison to the rate of retention among SLTP/Mts. students which was 23.600 in the same year.

• The low quality of basic education (both school and out-of school programs) as measured from students’ academic achievement –one of quality indicators for education.

d. EFA plans

A 9- year basic education program with good quality results should be finalized, at the latest, in year 2008/2009 with detailed targets as follows: • Gross Participation Rate for SMP/MTs/Equivalence should reach a

minimum of 95% with the minimal standard for quality education. • Gender-equity in basic education should be encouraged and should reach

a 95% gross participation rate for girls in SMP/MTs/ Equivalence. • A well-run basic educational services to reduce SD/MI grade-repeater

rates to a maximum of 1%, SMP/MTs to maximum of 1%, to increase the continuing rate from SD/MI to SMP/MTs. to 99%, the graduation rate in SD/MI to a minimum of 99% and in SMP/MTs. to a minimum of 97%.

• A gradual increase of the Score of National Exit Exam, an increase to 18 in the ratio of student-teacher in SD/MI and maintaining 14.31 for the

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ratio in SMP/MTs. An increase to 35 for the ratio of student-class, 1 for the ratio of class-classroom. An increase to 100% for the ratio of laboratory-school, 80% for teachers’ teaching qualified-ness. A decrease in the percentage of worn-out school buildings to a maximum of 1%.

The efforts to provide access of basic education for disadvantaged groups are carried out through equivalency programs of Packet An equivalent to primary school and Packet B equivalent to junior secondary school. The efforts to improve the quality of education include the following aspects: 1) the quality control standard for educational quality; 2) the empowerment of institutional capacities; 3) the improvement of the quality of educational implementation; and 4) the promotion of stakeholders’ awareness about and commitment to improving the quality of education.

The goal for adult literacy program is planned to achieve 50% of literacy for adults that include over 15 years of adults and females by the year of 2015 and equal access for basic education and continuing education for all adults through training, courses, internship and life skill programs. However, the new cabinet of Indonesia will try to accelerate literacy achievement to have only 5% left by the year 2010.

e. Reliance on external funds There are number of pilot projects that use external funds. The projects include school based management at primary schools which is a core component of decentralized education assisted by UNESCO and UNICEF and various donor agencies since 1999/ 2000, which now has reached over 3000 primary schools covering more than 100 districts in 9 provinces. Another similar effort project of school based management for both primary and junior secondary schools aimed at providing capacity building for education planning at sub-district and district has also been conducted with assistance from JICA (REDIP project). AusAID recently has just initiated a partnership project in East Java with emphasis on effective learning and school based management as well. The World Bank has piloted the Education for Youth Employment (EYE) program to increase opportunities for jobless youth and to improve adults’ (over 15 years) completion of basic education program with the inclusion of life skill programs.


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II. Teacher deployment and resource mobilization and management

a. Introduction Teacher deployment in Indonesia is highly influenced by decentralization policy in education. Law No. 22 of 1999 Local Governance is the legal basis for the decentralization of authorities in education. This law is articulated in Government Regulation No. 25 of 2000 which sets the shared authorities between central and district government. According to this regulation, the only authorities left in the central government in education are those related to setting of national policies for standards of competencies, national curriculum, education calendar and evaluation. A more operational and technical arrangements in educational implementation belong to the district or municipal government. Thus, central government is no longer regulating the arrangement of teacher deployment at district level. The government authorities that formerly lay in the central government were radically shifted mostly to the hands of district government. Before 1999, Indonesian education was highly centralized system. The structure consisted of national, regional or provincial, district and subdistrict levels that constituted an extended hierarchical form of managerial system. The central government decided policies of teacher recruitment, retention, promotion and management. Provincial level implemented these policies almost without much adaptation to any local condition. District and sub district levels were then implemented both national and provincial policies into school practices. In this situation the principals at the foot of the hierarchy had almost no power to decide teacher allotment and promotion. However, the Law 22/1999 abolishes any hierarchical relationship between districts/municipals, Province and Central administration with regards to decentralized Authorities. The Law 22/1999 broadly outlines powers and responsibilities of each government level. Thus a kind of the new relations between the district governments and central government are established. This Regional Autonomy initiative is accompanied by decentralization of expenditure responsibilities, finances, assets and personnel. In education, the authority held by central government includes: developing minimum service standard for education, developing minimum competency standard for

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teachers, determine minimum teachers’ qualification for each education level, as well as managing accreditation and certification. In line with the implementation of the Law No 22, 1999, and its Government Regulation No 25, 2000, the legal products are being improved resulted in the amendment of 1945 Constitution and Education Law No 20, 2003.

The preamble of the amendment of 1945 directs all attempt to nation building that is “to advance general prosperity, to develop the nation’s intellectual life, and to contribute to the implementation of a world order based on freedom, lasting peace and social justice” which based on Pancasila the five principles of the nation consisted of: “the belief in the One and Only God, on just and civilized humanity, on the unity of Indonesia and on democratic rule that is guided by the strength of wisdom resulting from deliberation/representation, so as to realize social justice for all the people of Indonesia.”

Therefore, education according to the preamble of the Constitution plays an important role especially for developing the nation’s intellectual life. This amendment resulted in recognition that education is a prime social institution that has to be supported by other social institutions includes law, social-culture, economics, and politics as the collective awareness. Education should also be responsive to the unbalance population structure, socio-economic gap, digital divide, and self-adjustment to the new values in the globalization era; and it should be directed to the nation character building.

The important of education is further elaborated in the Constitution, Article 28C, verse (1): “Every person has the right to self-realization through the fulfilment of his basic needs, the right to education and to partake in the benefits of science and technology, art and culture, so as to improve the quality of his life and the well-being of mankind.” The right to education is stated in article 31, (1) “Each citizen has the right to an education” and (2) “Each citizen is obliged to follow basic education and the government has the duty to fund this.” In terms of budget system the Constitution strongly regulates that “the state shall give priority to the education budget by allocating at least twenty percent of the state’s as well as of the regional budgets to meet the requirements of implementing national education” (Article, 31, verse (4)).

The Education Law, 20, 2003, article 40, verse (1) and (2) regulates rights and responsibilities of education personnel that they are entitled to:


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• Have respectable professional salary and adequate social welfare provision;

• Obtain recognition based on their duties and performance; • Have opportunities to develop their career in accordance with the

requirement for quality improvement; • Have legal protection in carrying out their duties and the rights to

intellectual property; • Have access to educational facilities, equipment and resources to enhance

the effectiveness and efficiency of their work. • Educators and education personnel have the responsibilities to: • Create meaningful, joyful, creative, dynamic, and mutually interactive

education environment; • Demonstrate professional commitment to the improvement of the quality

education; • Be the role model and uphold the reputation of their institution,

profession, and position in accordance with the trust deposited in them.

Based on these legal basis, it is expected that both central and district administrators are capable to achieve better teacher management in order to develop nation’s intellectual life as required by the Constitution. b. Description of responsibilities and authority levels in answer to

question - teachers

The decentralization provides many rooms for district and municipality government to develop education. Based on minimum service standard for education, districts and municipalities have their freedom to implement the process pertinent to districts and municipalities condition. The new responsibility and authority in teacher management are in the following:

1. Who determines the qualification for educational personnel? According to Education Law No 20, 2003, Article 42, verse (2) “Educators for formal education, for early childhood education, basic education, secondary education, and higher education should be graduated from accredited higher education”. In line with this Law, the central government regulates the minimum qualification for teachers. The minimum qualification for primary teachers is Diploma II (two years post-secondary/DII), Diploma III (three years post-secondary /DIII) and Sarjana (four years tertiary level/undergraduate S1).

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The Directorate General of Higher Education (DGHE) develops standards (exit performance standards) for primary teachers graduating from the DII, for junior secondary teachers graduating from DIII, and for senior secondary teachers graduating from S1, under its accreditation control. These exit standards relate to accreditation of teacher education program and define in same detail what an Indonesian graduate teacher should know and be able to do that include teacher competencies on mastering subject matter, pedagogy, curriculum delivery, and assessment. Complementary to this, the Directorate of Education Personnel under Directorate General of Primary and Secondary Education (DGPSE) prepares teacher competency standards for serving teacher to be used in assessing teacher performance and identifying professional development needs. It is expected that these will be used by provincial education quality assurance teams acting on behalf of the Ministry of National Education (MONE). The role of the provincial education quality assurance teams is still being developed and as yet, no clear guidelines have been developed for monitoring of districts. The guidelines will be based on criteria related to obligatory functions and the minimum service standards - which are also in the process of development. It is expected that the quality assurance assessment would lead to provision of additional technical supports for unqualified teachers within the underperforming districts. 2. Who actually hires and fires? Under the Law 22/1999, the district government is responsible for employing all teachers in the public school sector with the exception of madrasah school system that is regulated by Ministry of Religion Affair (MORA). This includes all service teachers (pegawai negri) in public and private schools (mostly secondary schools) who were previously hired and paid for by the central government. There are also districts that are participating in ongoing projects that include contract teachers (guru kontrak) paid for by the project from the central government. The status of this later group will be under review – waiting for the overall policy for the new recruitment after the zero growth policy – although attempt to reach agreement with district government on exit strategies have been pre-empted by the central government’s decision to recruit an additional 190,000 contract teachers. The zero growth policy regulates civil servant vacancy will be available only if there are retirement of civil servants. This means that there is no new appointment of any civil servant if there is not retirement available. This applies to equally to teachers as to other civil servants.


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District governments are bound by civil service zero recruitment policy that have been implemented over the past few years. For example, if district government wishes to hire any additional teachers, the district may pay for them from their own resources. District cannot use the recruitment of additional civil servants as the basis of request to the Ministry of Finance for increase in their budget allocations.

The pupil-teacher ratio is (PTR) 22:1 for primary school and 16:1 for junior secondary school and 12:1 for senior secondary schools; however, the formula is not yet applied efficiently. Large differences in staffing ratios are apparent. For example PTR for primary school ranges from 25:1 in district X to only 15:1 in district y. That means that there is one teacher for every 15 pupils in district Y. Despite these generous staffing ratios in compare to the national formula that is 22:1 for all primary schools, all districts complain of shortages of teachers. Distribution of teachers is a prime problem. There is a case of a school which has a ratio of 1 teacher to 6 pupils (60 pupils and 10 teachers), compared to another with a ratio of 1:30 (240 pupils and 8 teachers). In primary school, the inefficiency occurs in relation to insufficient planning of school mapping, inadequate practices of multi-grade teaching for a small school, and reluctances of transferring teachers when the number of pupils is declined. In junior and secondary schools decisions for allocating teachers are calculated based on the teaching hours for each subject matter (minimum teaching requirement is 18 hours per week and there is 13 to 18 subject in secondary schools). Geographic inequities also remain a persistent problem. Many parts of the country are extremely remote. This fact causes problems in resource allocation and in quality control. Resource shortages plague the system with problems in provision of qualified teachers which remain low. Teaching and learning strategies employ fairly old-fashioned approaches to classroom instruction, and the total number of instructional hours in the school year is well behind international averages.

In terms of fire system, although the district government have the option to dismiss contract teacher or not renew the contract, it is not easy for a district government to retrench, or dismiss civil servant teachers. This is because the application for teacher provision is submitted from the district government and the approval is issued by the central government. Over-protection for a ‘native’ teacher despite of quality also remains the case for inhibiting a dismissal.

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3. Who can transfer teachers? The district government is responsible for transferring teachers. Since decentralization, teaching vacancies are advertises in the local media. These advertisements provide information about the position and location of the job and invite interested teachers to apply. However, since decentralization it has become more difficult for head teacher to apply for transfer out of their original districts. The teacher and head teacher have the impressions that there is a lack of transparency involved in the appointment, transfer, and promotion of teachers. Currently, many teachers think that they cannot apply for vacancies in a different district. This is perhaps as a result of district protecting the civil servants as they already have and because there are still not a good mechanism by which schools and districts can advice teaching vacancies and recruit widely (that is across districts) to fill the posts with teachers best suited to the particular school. Before decentralization, transferring teachers is not a problem. Many teachers are able to get approval to transfer to another school within a province or entering another province. After decentralization, teacher transfer is a delicate job because of over-protection of a district for native/local teachers or expectation of higher quality of a teacher. 4. Who sets the pay scale? Teachers are civil servants. Salary level of civil servant including teachers is set centrally. The salary level for all civil servants is based on the rank. For a civil servant who holds a position, he/she will get additional payment. The salary for a teacher depends on his/her rank, length of teacher experiences, and additional burden of teaching. The minimum teaching hours are 18 hours and maximum 24 hour per week. Additional teaching hours will get extra payment. Although, the salary level is set centrally, many districts and schools provide supplementary benefit and incentives. Thus, districts government provides additional incomes to top up salary that set up centrally, and schools may also provide additional incentives for additional teachers’ workload. In Indonesia, low salaries are often quoted as being an important contributing factor to poor teacher performance, low teacher morale, and the low quality of entrants into the teaching profession. Therefore, the central government provides additional incentive for teachers, who work in remote areas, and in East Indonesia where the living standard is higher than other places in Indonesia.


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5. Who determines increases and promotion? There are several factors with regard to increases and promotion of teachers. The first is what so called DP3 (Daftar Penilaian Pekerjaan Pegawai Negeri Sipil) or administrative assessment of civil servant, second is credit system, and third is personal contribution in a teacher’s capacity of professional development. The DP3, as applied to any civil servant the DP3 is demonstrated by several sub-factors of loyalty, performance, responsibility, attendance, honesty, collaboration, and initiatives of a teacher. The credit system include involvement of training, products of written paper that include academic papers, lesson plans, collection of essays, worksheet, textbooks and other publications. The involvement in professional or community development can include a teacher’s role as instructors in in-service training, as a subject specialist in teacher forum, a member of teacher association and the like. The DP3 and the credit submitted by a teacher are considered to promote a civil servant’s rank of the teacher. In compare with other institutions, the MoNE is considered as having more generous civil servant promotion. The third criteria of professional involvement provides little impact to the rank promotion, however, this may contribute to increase more incomes, better recognition, popularity, and more involvement in seminars, in-service training, and professional development which enable teacher to gain more valuable credits.

District government is responsible to apply for the increases and promotion of civil servant teachers. However, the district may have their own decisions to increase and to promote locally hired teachers. The central government has developed a set of minimum competency standards for teachers and ways to measure their performance against these standards. However, the increases and promotion of the teachers still apply administrative factors as mentioned earlier. This is a time that the factors to measure increases and promotion should also include the actual classroom performances that meet the minimum standards. The teachers need to be given opportunities to continue learning for their own self-development, to gain their increases and promotion. The teachers’ own self-development need to be accounted for the increases and promotion. But, of course, this will require the availability of locally independent institutions to provide such school-based evaluation programs of teachers’ performances.

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c. The way the system works – teachers 1. Who is accountable (and to whom) and what is the system of

accountability? What is measured? Has accountability increase to beneficiaries/local groups? Is there wider participation beyond government?

1.1 Who is accountable (and to whom) and what is the system of

accountability? The strongest argument of the potential of policy to effect change in teacher deployment comes from the policies and regulations governing Indonesia’s implementation of the Laws of regional autonomy since 1999 (Law 22, 1999, and Government Regulation 25, 2000). The units of governance chosen were district rather than provincial. This is of course showing disparities in educational achievements between powerful and powerless districts in terms of capacity of human and financial resources. However, the decentralization has developed a very close relationship with democratization through school-based management. The accountability of the changes in teacher deployment includes pedagogy, learning outcomes, textbook provision, finance, and management.

Pedagogy – After decentralization the teachers are encouraged to produce their own syllabuses based on their creativity to adjust to learners’ needs and abilities, local conditions and resources, as well as cultural factors. Thus the teachers have greater freedom and autonomy to select learning content, teaching methods, and learning approaches. As it is required by the Laws explained earlier, the central government provides national standards on curriculum. This resulted in the competency-based curriculum that offers competency standards that are available for adjustments into diverse ranges of local interests and capabilities on school staff, budget, teaching-learning resources and the abilities of students. This curriculum provides learning areas and strands that are equal to minimal international standards that are designed centrally together with the competency standards. However, in order to achieve the national standard, detail content, methods and assessment procedure are decentralized.

Learning outcomes -- Before decentralization learning outcomes is mostly measured by external evaluation through national examination and


22

provincial or district based term evaluation. Here, the teachers have no flexibilities to assess their own teaching. The national examination was held at the end of grade 6, grade nine, and grade 12. The national examination was held for several subjects include Pancasila education, Bahasa Indonesia, mathematics, Science and Social Science in primary school; the same subjects are examined nationally in junior secondary school plus English. In senior secondary school, all students should sit for national exam for Pancasila Education, Bahasa Indonesia, Mathematics, and English. In addition to these compulsory subjects, the students of science stream would have Chemistry, Biology, and Physics exam; the students of social science stream would have Economy, History, Sociology, and Anthropology; and Indonesian Linguistics, Anthropology, and foreign languages other than English for the students of language stream. Meanwhile, term evaluation was conducted three times a year (one term (cawu) is about 4 months).

After decentralization, the national examination is no longer available in grade six or primary schools. In grade nine of Junior Secondary School and grade twelve of Senior Secondary School, students are taking national examination only for Mathematics, Bahasa Indonesia and English. Thus, other subjects are examined at school levels. There is a benchmarking test on literacy and numeracy for grade three of Primary School. The semester system is applied. There is no longer external evaluation for each semester. The teachers would have their own autonomy to conduct daily assessment through classroom based assessment using portfolios, and other authentic assessment methods.

The Assessment Centre at central level develops exit performance standards, however, school resources and teacher quality are contributing factors to difficulties in achieving these standards. Therefore, the quality of the measured academic learning outcomes by national examination is still far to achieve satisfactory results. Most schools are still under the national standards of academic achievement indicated by national examination results.

Textbook Provision – The availability of textbook are improved in terms of quantity and quality, although it is not quite satisfactory, the textbooks autonomy policy resulted in greater access to textbook provision, localization and diversification of content. The teachers now are having a say to select textbooks for their own teaching, based on the list of textbooks that are standardized by the team assigned by Book Centre.

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Finance – Prior to decentralization, teachers used education fund comes from the government. There was also extra funding from the community especially parents for quality improvements of daily school activities. However, the amount of parents’ contribution was regulated at provincial level. In practice however, at present parents are still asked to contribute financially to school in order to run its regular activities and for school improvement programs. Under decentralization district governments are now allowed to decide their own scale of parents’ contribution (see section C).

School Management – The school-based management aims at empowering school community by establishing school committee that improves school accountability. The community now has a voice to additional locally hired teacher for teaching skill or developing content that relevant to local needs and situations. This empowerment works not only at district level but also works at school level by empowering teaches and principals in designing their own syllabuses. This alters the working lives of teachers by learning from each others. Through Indonesia’s competency based curriculum that provides framework intended to standardize learning outcomes, the teachers have a freedom to develop their own ways of achieving standards, design and apply their own learning materials, lesson plans and classroom-based assessments. Thus, decentralization is also a mechanism of teacher professionalism.

The system of accountability is minimum service standards of education that inform to the community, accreditation and standardization system work independently. These attempts provide more transparency that would be benefited for parents as well as students as clients to education system.

1.2 What is measured?

The success story of a school is often related to the performance standards that are demonstrated by its students. The quality of students’ performance depends on quality of schools, resources, and teachers’ performance, leadership of principals, management, and community involvement. Decentralization requires an extensive, real and professional ways of decision making for holistic school development. Decentralization can also be understood as a means to empower school


24

staff, local communities and all relevant stake holders. The measures of school performance are explained in the following:

Students’ performance – The number of drop-out, repetition, graduates, and score on national examination are indicators of success criteria of schools. In addition to the indicators, other performance of students’ reputation in speech contests, subject matter Olympiad, art, sport and cultural events are also considered as indicators of success.

Teachers’ performance – The first measure on a teacher is his/her pre-service qualification level. A length of teaching experience, completion of upgrading program, frequency of in-service training, teaching preparation, involvement in professional development within, between, and beyond school are considered as the measures of teachers’ performance. Teachers’ initiatives in leading extracurricular activities that include religion, cultural, ceremonial, sport, and health education programs are also contributed to teachers’ performance. It is expected that under decentralization, productive teaching and learning processes at classroom level and contribution to the professional education community of teachers would become the main measure of the performance.

Pupil-teacher ratio – Pupil-teacher ratio in a school is also considered as a significant factor to a good quality of a school.

Resources – Availability and variety of teaching-learning aids, resource materials, pupil-textbook ratio, and involvement of resource persons are measured as contributing factors to school quality.

Leadership of principals – The principals’ leadership plays significant role for teacher professional development. It can be observed in Indonesian school that those principals who have capabilities to: require teachers to fulfil minimum service standard, establish mechanisms for professional development which led to school performance; provide merit system, require substantial commitment from community, and .work closely with school committee; are able to demonstrate the quality of their schools. The school with a strong professional leadership of the principals is also able to include classroom practice in the measurement of teachers’ performance.

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Management – Administrative works in teacher deployment, retention, and promotion, as well as in student enrolment, attendance, assessment and final examination, transfer and graduation are the measures of school management. Budget and school resources’ allocation, provision, use, and their reporting system are also measured.

Community involvement – A good school is often manifesting community involvement in classroom and extracurricular activities, professional development of teachers, raising standards of school performance, and increasing school budget.

1.3 Has accountability increase to beneficiaries/local groups?

Accountability has increased to local groups in a way that decision made is more suitable to local conditions, needs and potentials. For those districts which have more resources and budgets, they are having more choices to hire more qualified teachers based on their needs. They are also having flexibilities to provide in-service teacher training or capacity building by sending them to an advanced school, district, province or even sending them abroad. Parents have more choices to spend budget for their children education which depends on their financial affordability. High income parents are able to manage to pay for expensive schools because of higher standards. Meanwhile, low income parent may able to have adequate education for their children based on minimum service standards, and they may apply scholarship that often offered by district to local people. In order to increase beneficiaries for disadvantaged groups, the Education Law, No 20, 2003, has clearly stated the important of special services for these groups including rural areas: “Education with special services is provided for learners in the remote and less developed areas, and/or for learners who are victims of natural disasters, suffers from social deficiencies, and those who are economically disadvantaged (Education Act, No 20, 2003, article 32, verse 2)”. This article 32 implies that special attention should be given for disadvantaged groups including those who are economically disadvantaged (drop outs, no further education, child workers, street children), those who are suffer from social deficiencies (children trafficking), victim of natural disaster, and those who live in remote areas, including ethnic minorities.


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1.4 Is there wider participation beyond government?

After decentralization, the district government has more freedom to apply for volunteer teachers from non-government organization. For example hiring English teachers or other foreign language teachers, or employing resource person for the inclusion of drugs, HIV/AIDS prevention in school programs. Other program may include Information and Communication Technology with private sectors such as Computer Company.

2. How is information gathered and used for the purposes of

accountability?

The information is gathered at different levels that include school, district, provincial and national levels. This information then can be used by parents, community, teachers, principals, educational administrators, and educators.

School –Schools undertake internal self-evaluation processes through school regular meeting and administrative information. Schools inform parents each semester through verbal and written document of the students’ report cards, and through annual meeting and customary meeting when necessary. Schools submit reports of the schools’ performance to school inspectors and district administrators. The information are for feedback to parents and community and often used for improving students’ performance through better school development program. The reports are used by school inspectors and district managers for providing professional support on school quality improvement, supplying new teachers, and disseminating better practice.

District – District provides reports on the achievement of minimum service standards that can be used by parents, schools, provincial and national education administrators. The reports can be considered as inputs to have better teacher supply on demand, professional support, more budgetary resources for staff development, better information systems on teacher and school performance, and dissemination of best practices.

Provincial – Province provides quality assurance, reports on school and district practices, disseminates information, identifies and disseminates better practices. The inputs can be used by school, district and national

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education administrators to improve school practice, performance and teacher management.

National – National level sets minimum service standards and teacher performance and accreditation standards. National education administrators Monitor and evaluate the achievement of standards. The Assessment Centre at national level carries out national examination and provides report on students’ achievement of Mathematics, Bahasa Indonesia and English subjects. The information can be used by related institution to establish accreditation of teacher education programs and institutions, respond to employers’ and service providers’ needs, and professional development. Parents and community usually used the reports from the Assessment Centre to improve their children learning or even to complain to school and related institution for better services and accountability of education performance.

Under the decentralization, school management committees and district governments expect to hold schools and teachers accountable for learning outcomes, but the way in which school performance is currently measured is not always based on the most value-added inputs. Teaching is a complex operation. Effective teaching requires the ability to implement education policies on curriculum, productive pedagogy, and authentic assessment to achieve high educational standards. Given the very diverse environments in which teacher works in Indonesia, teachers should be entitled to support services and professional development programs that build their capacities to improve the quality of their schools wherever they may be located and raise learning standards. School and teacher performance guidelines are now being developed involved setting standards for schools for school with the intention that schools would be regularly evaluated on the extent to which their performance meets those standards. School performance monitoring includes, of course, what teachers do and how to contribute to students learning and the life of school. But there may be other occasion when individuals teachers may want to be accredited for a specific contribution they are making to school quality: for example, to be assessed and accredited as a mentor for induction programs or as a subject specialist for in-service training purposes. This kind of assessment or accreditation would naturally involve a classroom review of teacher at work, but would also need to provide measures for assessing other form of teachers value-added to the profession.


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2.1 Capacity and professional development-how developed-effective?

Professional development of teachers includes pre-service training, upgrading, in-service training, internship, and participation in teachers’ forum. Pre-service training – Initial teacher preparation remains the function of universities and teacher training institutes that are accredited by the MoNE’s Directorate General of Higher Education. As explained earlier, the teachers should have minimum qualification for each education level, therefore, for those teachers who haven’t met the required qualification should attend upgrading program. Upgrading program – This program aims at fulfilling and increasing minimum standard of teachers’ qualification which includes DII and DIII courses. Open University and other universities are responsible for the program. The program is accredited by Directorate General of Higher Education. The teachers may apply for further education courses such as master program which is funded by several quality improvement projects. In-service training – Prior to decentralization, central government provides regular in-service training program at provincial and national levels. The district central government also carried out in-service training at district level related to piloting program on curriculum, assessment, action research and the like. Most training are training of tutor or cascade training which is vulnerable to have distortion, misinformed, and misconception of the original ideas. Provincial government carried out training in provincial teacher training centres (Balai Pelatihan Guru dan Pusat Peningkatan dan Pelatihan Guru) as deconcentrated branches of the MoNE. Now districts are responsible for providing in service training and professional support activities, but not many districts have the recourses to do so.

Internship – There are few districts that have initiative to send teachers to have internship program within the districts, or sending them to another districts or even abroad for internship program or comparative study.

Teacher forum – The most effective professional development of teachers in Indonesia is carried out by teacher forum. The forum namely teacher working group (kelompok kerja guru/KKG) in primary school, and

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subject matter teacher working group (musyawarah guru mata pelajaran/MGMP) for junior and senior secondary school teachers. The forum is a cluster-based professional development that provides professional activities for better classroom practices. In professional development, there is ongoing discussion of how to make both the universities and the accrediting board more autonomous and how to make the process of accreditation more demanding and competitive so that education programs in universities will become more responsive to the needs of schools and district governments. Often the universities have limited exposures to professional development in practices. Most teachers are benefited from cluster-based teachers’ forum of KKG and MGMP, however, these experiences are hardly taken into academic discussion in the universities. Now districts are responsible for providing in service training and professional support activities, but few have the recourses or the motivation to do so. The ways in which the lifelong education of teacher related to their career, promotion and incentive structures have not yet been clearly articulated. This needs to be addressed in the context of decentralization, to ensure that teachers and districts have access to recourses to support such programs.

3. Effectiveness and efficiency of system in delivering quality EFA

3.1 Is the quality of education improving? There are significant efforts to improve quality of education. The improvement started with improving access to education. The first significant effort was the Presidential Decree in 1975/1974 that was called as Intruksi Presiden Sekolah Dasar (Inpres SD) or President Instruction of Primary Schools. The Inpres SD followed by massive development of primary school buildings, textbooks, and other educational facilities throughout Indonesia including remote areas.

In 1968, enrolment rate of primary school 41.4 %, and in 1973/74 increased to 66.6 %, and increased further in 1978/79 to 79.3 % as a result of Inpres SD. The 1973/1974 Inpres SD was continued by government declaration of six years compulsory education in 1984. As a result of the six years compulsory education, in 1988/1989 had achieved 100 % enrolment rate of primary school.


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With regards to the achievement of six years compulsory education, in 1989 the government issued the 1989 Law of National Education System No 2, which stated nine years basic education (primary and junior secondary levels) as compulsory education. In 1994, the government declared nine years compulsory education.

The contexts of nine years compulsory education in Indonesia can be marked by the 1998 economic crises and the number of population. Although Indonesia had successfully control the population through family planning program, the inexorable pressure of population growth is the government worrisome problem. Rising unemployment could threaten the government’s economic and political stability. Consequently, the economic planning should provide labour-intensive and export oriented industries. However, globalization and advancement in information and communication technology (ICT) have shifted the economic development towards the provision of competencies that are needed in the knowledge-based economy. This is resulted in greater difficulties for an unskilled manpower to have a job.

In the past, Indonesia’s economy begins at agriculture filed mainly of the rice roots. The rice paddy is a typical source for gaining incomes in the rural areas. Today, despite the shift towards manufacturing and labour-intensive industries, agriculture remained a vital source of employment.

Around 35 million Indonesians work in agriculture, with another 17 million in trade and restaurants in 1990’s, at the moment there is no significant indicators that agriculture employment has been replaced. People who are working in agriculture mostly come from rural areas. The development of rural areas is measured by the adequate water sources, adequate sanitation and electricity. A broader measure of poverty is called as HPI (Human Poverty Index) which is measured by access to safe water, education and health. For example within Indonesia the HPI ranges from a high of 47.7% to a low of only 8.3%. The 1998’s impact of the crisis is a sharp increase in the severity of poverty.

One estimate shows that between February 1996 and February 1999 the number of people falling below 65% of the poverty line increased by 73% and 63% in urban and rural areas respectively. More recent data show that the urban severity index dropped back to the pre-crisis level, although the rural severity index remained above the pre-crisis level.

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In response to the crisis, government took several steps to deal with the crisis through Social Safety Net program. The purpose of Social Safety Net program is (i) to mitigate the adverse impact of the crisis to the poor and (ii) to sustain the investment level of basic social services especially to the poor. The fundamental principle for Social Safety Net program includes (i) keeping children of the poor families in schools through a scholarship program for primary, junior secondary and senior secondary levels, and (ii) preventing the deterioration of education quality by providing block grants to primary and junior secondary at poor areas.

However, there are still many places especially in rural areas has a very limited schools. In this case, the block grant is applied only to those areas, which have schools already. If we look carefully to the most disadvantaged place which has limited infrastructure, geographically remote, limited electricity and no access for information technology, education will remain less developed. Thus, poor education and insufficient skills could contribute to poverty and social welfare.

In line with the Law of Regional autonomy (1999), The 1989 Education Law had improved in 2003. The Law of the Republic Indonesia No 20, Year 2003, on National Education System, article 5, verse 1, states that ‘every citizen has equal rights to receive a good quality education’. This policy is implemented by providing educational services to reach as much citizen as possible. The policy of basic education is equipped as universal 9-year basic education program (primary and junior secondary levels).

Table I indicates that approximately 39,5 million pupils were served in 2003/04. About 25,9 million of them were served by primary school and its equivalence, 10,2 children by junior secondary school and its equivalence. In addition to basic education there are about 6,2 million of senior secondary school students and its equivalence, and 3,6 million of higher education students. Table 1 indicates the effort of the nation to increase students’ enrolment at all level of education.

Those enrolment increases were made possible by addition of educational institution and teachers that also drastically increased (see Table 1). Primary school number was increased in 2001/02, however, the number decreased in 2002/03, and in 2003/04 the increase has not reached the number of primary schools as in the year of 00/01. However, the number of teachers has increased in both primary and junior secondary levels, and also in senior secondary and tertiary levels.


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Table 1: Dynamics of education

2000/2001 2001/2002 2002/2003 2003/2004 Student • Primary school • Junior secondary • Senior secondary • Higher education

28,690,131 9,563,434 5,478,603 3,199,174

28,926,377 9,757,132 5,712,745 3,348,567

29,050,834 9,936,647 5,941,786

3,441,429

29,247,546 10,167,311

6,192,610 3,551,092

Institution • Primary school • Junior secondary • Senior secondary • Higher education

170,999 31,086 16,120

2,199

171,315 31,626 16,079

2,386

169,147 32,322 16,774

2,692

170.404 33,263 17,061 2,856

Teacher • Primary school • Junior secondary • Senior secondary • Higher education

1,2890,720

377,720 303,365 147,716

1,361,182

384,843 320,310 153,598

1,431,486

376,512 335,671 159,532

1,453,228

375,940 346,782 164,844

Source: Office of Research and Development, MoNE, 2004

At macro level, the basic education policy has resulted in a progress of the primary school enrolment rate from 94.89 percent in 1999/2000 to 99,63 percent in 2003/2004, and junior secondary school enrolment rate increase from 73.02 in 1999/2000 to 80.49 in 2003/2004 (ORD, MoNE, 2004). However, there are number of children who drop-out, cannot go to further education, and of children who have no schooling experiences at all. In 2003/2004 there are 2.42 percent of dropout from primary schools; 2.74 percent from junior secondary schools, and 3.02 percent from senior secondary schools. The number of dropout children are usually higher in rural than urban areas. Furthermore, although the quantitative progress on education access has been achieved; equal access for quality remains problematic especially for disadvantaged groups.

Table 2 shows difference school enrolment rate for 9 years basic education especially of the children aged 13-15 in the Junior Secondary School. Enrolment rate of the rural is 57.5 for Junior Secondary School which much smaller than urban (72.7). This is worsening in Senior Secondary School (rural: 28.7 and urban: 56.1), and the worst at university levels (rural: 2.1 and urban: 15.4).

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Table 2 : School Enrolment

School levels Primary

School Junior Secondary

School Senior Secondary

School University

Urban Male Female M + F

92.3 92.0 92.2

72.5 73.0 72.7

56.9 55.2 56.1

16.0 14.9 15.4

Rural Male Female M + F

92.6 93.0 92.8

56.2 58.8 57.5

28.5 29.0 28.7

2.1 2.1 2.1

Urban + Rural Male Female M + F

92.5 92.6 92.6

62.6 64.5 63.5

40.5 40.6 40.6

8.8 8.3 8.8

. Source: Susenas, BPS (2003)

Table 3 indicates that in the school year 2003/2004, the number of drops-outs of Primary School (PS) and Madrasah Ibtidaiyah (MI) are 702,660 children and the graduates of PS plus MI who have no further schools are 542, 258 children (see Table 1). The equivalency program of Packet A will look after the drop-outs of grade IV, V, and VI that is about 350 thousands children.

Table 3. Drop-outs of PS & MI& graduates who have no further school

2002/2003 2003/2004 2004/2005DO PS + MI 851,232 702,660 685,967a, PS 767,835 621,235 604,228- Grade I 109,502 102,122 94,339- Grade II 84,971 86,159 80,173- Grade III 94,797 90,716 91,402- Grade IV 173,587 118,353 117,045- Grade V 128,798 111,809 108,753- Grade VI 176,180 112,076 112,516b, MI 83,397 80,831 81,739

No further School 560,323 542,258 495,261 SSoouurrccee:: PPDDIIPP--BBaalliittbbaanngg,, DDeeppddiikknnaass 22000044


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Table 4 indicates that inn the school year 2003/2004, the number of drop-outs of Junior Secondary School (JSS) and Madrasah Tsanawiyah (MTs) are 271,948 children. The equivalency program of Packet B has to include these drop-outs into the program.

TTaabbllee 44 :: DDrroopp--OOuutt ooff JJuunniioorr SSeeccoonnddaarryy SScchhooooll ((JJSSSS)) &&

MMaaddrraassaahh TTssaannaawwiiyyaahh ((MMII))

2002/2003 2003/2004 2004/2005 DO JSS + MTs 277,112 271,948 263,793

a, JSS 188,303 180,043 171,376 Grade I 25,918 25,556 24,196 Grade II 53,757 52,737 50,024 Grade III 108,628 101,750 97,156 b, MTs 88,809 91,905 92,417

Equal access for girls and boys is also taken into consideration. As indicated by Figure 1, in the school year 2001/2002, the highest percentage of Junior Secondary School was the girls. Meanwhile the number of boys’ drop-outs was higher than the girls in Primary and Senior Secondary School.

FFiigguurree 11.. DDrroopp OOuutt RRaattee ((%%)) bbyy SScchhooooll LLeevveell && GGeennddeerr

5,3 4,74

10,04

2,95

6,88

9,83

4,23 3,67

7,8

02468

1012

PS JSS SSS

Boy Girl Boy & Girl

SSoouurrccee:: DDeeppddiikknnaass,, 22000011//0022

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35

IIff wwee llooookk aatt tthhee ccoohhoorrtt iinnddiiccaatteedd bbyy FFiigguurree 22,, tthhee ggrraadduuaatteess ooff nniinnee yyeeaarrss bbaassiicc eedduuccaattiioonn wwhhoo ccoommpplleettee tthheeiirr sscchhooooll oonn ttiimmee iiss 4455,,66%%.. OOtthheerr ssttuuddeennttss rreeppeeaatt tthheeiirr sscchhoooollss,, oorr hhaavvee ccoommpplleetteedd pprriimmaarryy sscchhooooll ((PPSS)) aanndd MMaaddrraassaahh IIbbttiiddaaiiyyaahh ((MMII)) bbuutt hhaavvee nnoo ffuurrtthheerr eedduuccaattiioonn..

FFiigguurree 22

Figure 3 shows a low number of students who continue their education and complete their school in time. In 2000/2001, there were only 13.4% of the students who completed their tertiary level in a required time.

Completion of Basic Education Improved, but not GOOD Completion of Basic Education Improved, but not GOOD EnoughEnough

32,134,690/91

88/89

87/88

82/8382/83-90/91

42,842,365,468,8

100%

RVI PassIIIIPassI

32,134,690/91

88/89

87/88

82/8382/83-90/91

42,842,365,468,8

100%

RVI PassIIIIPassI

45,648,800/0151,351,298/99

71,875,197/98100%92/93

92/93-00/01

45,648,800/0151,351,298/99

71,875,197/98100%92/93

92/93-00/01

PS/MI JSS/MTs

• Completed on time (9 years) : 45,6%• Other: repeater (need more time for completion) and DO (no completion)

or graduating from PS/MI but no further education


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Figure 3

Low number of students to continue their education up to Higher Education in time

13.4NS2000/0126.1G

29.2NS1997/9839.2G

44.2NS1994/9566.1G

100%1988/895,410,496 NS

HESSS/MAJSS/MTsPS/MI

13.4NS2000/0126.1G

29.2NS1997/9839.2G

44.2NS1994/9566.1G

100%1988/895,410,496 NS

HESSS/MAJSS/MTsPS/MI

NS: New StudentG: GraduateSource: Educational Statistics in Brief, 2000/2001

There are several reasons expressed by the student of 7 – 18 years for not attending school. These can be seen in Table 4.

TTaabbllee 44 :: RReeaassoonnss ffoorr NNoott AAtttteennddiinngg SScchhooooll ooff PPeeooppllee

ooff 77--1188 yyeeaarrss,, 22000033

Reasons Rural Urban Rural + Urban Economy (No money) 71,0 65,1 67,7 Shy/ don’t like schools 3,7 5,1 4,7 Working 9,2 8,5, 6,7 Married 1,8 2,9 2,6 Not Accepted 0,6 0,3 0,4 School distance 0,3 3,2 2,3 Feel that has had adequate education

3,8 3,8 3,8

Disable 1,3 1,1 1,2 Other 8,5 10,0 9,6 Total 100,0 100,0 100,0

SSoouurrccee:: SSuusseennaass 22000033

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The most reason is economic factor (65% - 72%). This reason is strong where more some students responded that they have to earn money as a reason for not attending schools (7% - 9%). Other significant reason is that students did not like school or shy to attend school. Married and feel that they have had adequate education is contributing factors to hamper access to education. Thus, economic factor is the most significant reason for which is indicated by Figure 4 and 5.

Figure 4 : Education progress of PS/MI by level and

Family expenditure

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

1995 1998 2002 2003

persen

Quintile 1 Quintile 2 Quintile 3

Quintile 4 Quintile 5 Rata-rata

Source: Susenas, 2003

Percentage (persen), average (rata-rata)


38

Figure 5 : Education progress of JSS/MTs by level and Family expenditure 1993–2003

Source: Susenas, 2003 Percentage (persen), average (rata-rata)

Figure 6 shows that most employees in Indonesia work as a worker or a labour regardless the level of education. Around 83.38 percent of Indonesians graduated from Higher Education (HE) are worker; few of them work independently (6.14%) and work in the family business (3.93%). Other are free-lance worker or work supported by labour. The pattern is repeated for Senior Secondary School (SSS) or Madrasah Aliyah (MA) graduation. However, most Indonesian youth who have not completed primary school (PS) or Madarasah Ibtidaiyah (MI) are working in the family business. The percentage of these groups who work independently is higher than the HE graduation. This pattern is repeated for graduation of PS/MI, and junior secondary school (JSS)/ madrasah tsanawiyah (MTs). Perhaps, it can be understood from the Figure that the lowest the education, the higher life skills (regardless the quality or complexities) of the employee.

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

1995 1998 2002 2003

pers

en

Quintile 1 Quintile 2 Quintile 3

Quintile 4 Quintile 5 Rata-rata

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Figure 6 : Percentage of Youth Employee by Type of Work and

Completion of Education

In terms of quality of inputs on education that include educational policies, curriculum, textbooks, and teacher supply can be considered as being improved. In addition to implementation of the Law No 22, 1999, the legal products are being improved resulted Government Regulation No 20, 2000, and The Education Law No 20, 2003, and the amendment of 1945 Constitution

The 2004 curriculum is reformed to become a competency-based curriculum which offers competency standards that are available for adjustments into diverse ranges of local interests and capabilities on school staff, budget, teaching-learning resources and the abilities of students. The new curriculum provides learning areas and strands that are equal to minimal international standards that are designed centrally together with the competency standards. However, in order to achieve the national standard, detail content, methods and assessment procedure are decentralized.

20.07 14.981.49

22.56 12.22 28.67

19.71 13.521.78

28.59 9.87 26.53

18.8 10.32.03

39.2 6.23 23.44

15.13 7.52.55

60.872.26

11.69

6.143.28

3.1283.18

0.353.93

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Not/not yet completed PS

PS/MI

JSS/MTs

SSS/MA

HE

Independent work Supported by irregular laborSupported by regular labor labor/workerFree-lance employee Family earning

Source : BPS, Susenas 2003


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The burden of national examination is reduced by having no national examination at grade six or primary schools. The number of subjects for examination at grade nine of Junior Secondary School and grade twelve of Senior Secondary School are reduce to only three subject of Mathematics, Bahasa Indonesia and English. There is a benchmarking test for grade three of Primary School on literacy and numeracy at national level.

The availability of textbook are improved in terms of quantity and quality, although it is not quite satisfactory, the textbooks autonomy policy resulted in greater access to textbook provision, localization and diversification of content. Teacher provision is relatively well distributed after decentralization, however, it is not necessary relevant to subject matter required.

In terms of quality of the measured academic learning outcomes by national examination is still far to achieve satisfactory results. Most schools are still under the national standards of academic achievement indicated by national examination results. Although the Assessment Centre at central level has developed exit performance standards, school resources and teacher quality are contributing factor to difficulties in achieving these standards. Most importantly the productivity of the majority of Indonesian employee need to be improved especially in relation to competitive, adaptive, and collaborative manner.

3.2 Have the target being made?

The target of education quality reform have been made that include the development of national standards, quality assurance, benchmarking process, empowerment and capacity building of educational staff and institution, quality management, and raising the commitment of stakeholders and district government to the improvement of educational quality. The attempt to raise the quality of education includes: • Develops exit performance standards for each school level • Implements examination system for quality control • Carries out literacy and numeracy test • Monitors progress on reading literacy, mathematical literacy, and

scientific literacy through national survey.

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• Provides minimum service standard and accreditation for education institution including schools, madrasahs, and Community Learning Centres

• Provides minimum competency standards of educational staff and facilitators

3.3 Are differentiated needs being met?

Differentiated needs in education have been met by providing more flexibility in hiring and appointing teachers based on local needs and potential. A more flexible approach is also applied for localizing curriculum and textbooks.

3.4 Are the marginalized being reached

The Education Law, No 20, 2003, has clearly stated the important of special services for disadvantaged groups including rural areas:

Education with special services is provided for learners in the remote and less developed areas, and/or for learners who are victims of natural disasters, suffers from social deficiencies, and those who are economically disadvantaged (Education Law, No 20, 2003, article 32, verse 2). This article 32 implies that special attention should be given for the development of education in marginalized areas including rural areas. This is because rural area still less developed in comparison to urban. Provision of visiting teachers (guru kunjung) for remote areas or children of fishermen; distance learning, open school, multi-grade teaching, small school, and equivalency program are the example of the implementation of this policy. Incentive for teachers work in difficult and remote areas is also provided.

3.5 What about non-formal education? Private education? What

arrangement concerning teacher deployment and management?

Educational personnel of non-formal education (tutors and skill-based resource persons) are recruited from community members. These are the people who meet predetermined criteria, have commitment, motivation and capability of teaching, mentoring, tutoring, and facilitating learning activities. In general, however, the tutors are recruited from school teachers, while skill-based resource persons who facilitate learners in


42

acquiring and mastering of practical and life skills, are recruited from community members who are competent to provide technical and life skills made available by the program.

Educational personnel of private schools are appointed by the foundation of the private schools. For the private school that employ civil-servant teachers the arrangement is similar to civil servant teachers in public schools. However, the foundation of the private school may provide incentive and beneficiaries on top of civil-servant teacher salary.

4. Description and responsibilities and authority levels in answer to

questions—resources

4.1 Who decides about sources of funds?

According to the new education law number 20/ 2003, article 47, the central government, local governments and community shall mobilize the education resources available in accordance with the regulations. This is in line with the principle that the financing of education in the country is the shared responsibility of the central government, local governments, and community (Article 46). After Indonesia has passed its decentralization laws in 1999 (Laws No.22/ 1999 and No.25/ 1999) which were followed with the issuance of subsequent regulations afterwards, the sources of fund for education have changed, and the transfers of fund have undergone profound changes.

Formerly the system of education fund transfer was characterized chiefly

by earmarked grants from the central government budget to provincial and district governments. After decentralization, it has been replaced by one which relies largely on general grants from the central government budget to local governments with expanded revenue sharing. Unlike earmarked grants that have to be spent for specified purposes, the use of general grants is left up to the discretion of the recipient / local governments. The decentralization laws also allow local or regional governments (both provincial and district) to retain an increasing share of the revenues generated from local economic activities and natural resources.

Beside from the governments, significant parts of the education fund also

come from the community especially parents/ students. Most of the education expenditures in private schools is paid by the parents, while

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parents still have to pay significant amounts of school fees and other school expenditures for their children who are enrolled in public schools. It must be noted that private schools play a significant role in providing access to education in the country. For instance, nearly all preschool education institutions including kindergarten are provided by private foundations which require parents to pay for their children’s education. At preschool level, the government tends not to provide funding support to provide education access. Instead, it only provides support in the forms of national curricular standards and teaching learning practice examples through a few model schools (kindergarten) run by the government. Even at compulsory basic education level which consists of six year primary school (PS) and three year junior secondary school (JSS), significant proportions of children are enrolled in both private primary and junior secondary schools (about 16% and 36% respectively). Most private schools especially JSS are established by the community because access to public schools is limited, rather than for another reason such as seeking for better quality schools.

In general the sources of education fund or budget can be divided into three levels. At the local government level (province and district), the fund consists of three categories, namely the general purpose fund (DAU) and specific purpose fund (DAK) which are allocated from the central to local governments, and the other local government revenues from local economic activities, natural resources, and other shared revenues regulated by the law. The general purpose fund is supposed to be used by the local governments to finance obligatory functions which have been decentralized under the law such as education and health. In theory, the proportion of fund from DAU used for education in a particular district is determined solely by the district government itself. In practice, the local government has little freedom to use the DAU since its largest proportion has been earmarked to pay fixed salaries of the education personnel including teachers within the district. Only about 10% of the DAU set aside for education is usually used for non-salary purposes. The DAK (relatively much smaller than DAU) allocated for the local governments is earmarked for specific purposes that they are not allowed to use for other purposes. For instance the DAK for school rehabilitation or school construction can only be used for these specific purposes.

At central level, education fund is allocated to the line ministries especially MONE and MORA. The allocated fund contained in the state


44

annual budget which is allocated to these ministries will be used mostly to fund routine education expenditures for the areas not designated to the regional government (e.g. madrasah and higher education) and to fund routine expenditures at central offices. Part of the allocated budget is used to fund education development activities at school, regional and central levels. Allocated funds for education activities at schools and local government levels are usually called “deconcentration fund” which are disbursed through a number of different education projects targeted for specific purposes. The actual delivery of deconcentration support to the local governments and schools can be in the form of proposal-based block grants, or in the form of activities or in kind as needed. It should be noted that education implementation from preschool to secondary school has been decentralized to the district government, except in Madrasah (Islamic schools) which is still run centrally by MORA. Thus the financing of education in madrasah schools is still managed directly by MORA through its offices in the districts and provinces.

At school level, education fund in public schools comes from the government and the community especially parents. In Indonesia based on the new education law number 20 year 2003, nine year basic education is compulsory and free. The government has the obligation to provide quality basic education to all the children aged 7-15 years. In practice however, at present parents are still asked to contribute financially to school in order to run its regular activities and for school improvement programs. According to the study conducted by ADB (Clark. D et al, 1998), 12% and 3% portions of school revenues at public JSS and PS came from the community (parents) in the form of various school fees. While in private JSS and PS the community contributed 65% and 30% portions of the school revenues respectively. In private schools at higher levels, larger portions of school revenues were derived from the parents’ contribution. In a more recent study conducted by Research and Development Office, MONE (Ghozali et al., 2004), about 75% of the total education cost is paid by parents. It must be noted that it includes direct and indirect costs borne by parents / students including foregone earning or opportunity costs.

In addition to those sources of fund, under decentralization district governments are now allowed to generate their own taxes provided that the taxes are authorized by the national government and that they are in accordance with the principles set out in law 34/ 2000. Since being given this authority, district governments have been creating new taxes

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aggressively. However, in reality, the district governments have limited capacity to raise taxes from their own resources such as land, buildings, and natural resources, so these constitute only about 5 % of their revenues (ESR, 2004). To supplement local financial resources, district governments are allowed to borrow within limits. They can borrow but only within a formula that restricts the extent to which they can go into debt, with the approval by Ministry of Finance in the case of foreign loans, and without being guaranteed by the central government. At the national level, about half of the development budget continues to be financed by donor project loans.

4.2 Who decides how much revenues?

Prior to decentralization, the central government transferred public funds to the regional governments through the Autonomous Government Subsidy (Subsidi Dearah Otonom) and through Presidential Instruction Grants (INPRES). The SDO was the basic grant mechanism for recurrent expenditures, while general and special purpose INPRES transfers were the vehicle for development grants. The SDO financed almost the whole bill for the salaries and allowances of civil servants in local governments, including the pay fro primary school teachers. It also covered routine expenditures such as the operation and maintenance of school buildings and administrative expenditures. A lot of progress made in human development in the regions has been attributed to the INPRES grants, but this mechanism was characterized by excessive central control, a lack of transparency in its allocation procedures, and a lack of regional autonomy.

Under decentralization these transfer arrangements have changed. Formula-based grants from the central government now account, on average, for more than 70% of the revenues of provincial and district governments (see Table 1). In principle, these grants are allocated according to differences in local needs and local means. In practice, however, the formula also contains guarantees ensuring that the resources received by any given province or district will be at least equal to the amount of resources that it received in the past. As long as a large part of the block grants are protected by under “hold harmless” components, regional governments have very little control over the transfers that they receive, nor do they have a strong incentive to spend those resources efficiently. This is particularly true in education, since on average the


46

salaries of a huge teaching force account for more than 90% of expenditures.

Table 1: Sources of Local Revenues, Fiscal Year 2001

Source Rupiah (Billions) Percent

Carry-over from previous year Own-source revenues Transfers from central government Of which the DAU allocation Other revenues Total revenue

2,157.0 5,232.9 69,280.2 54,401.3 2,782.7 79,452.8

2.7 6.6

87.2 68.5 3.5

100.0 Source: Ministry of Finance (based on ESR Vol.1, Table 3.1, p.18)

In principle each local government has discretion to allocate the DAU and its own revenues from other local resources to finance all the obligatory activities designated by the decentralization law within its own area. Thus the proportion of the available budget which should be allocated to finance education, for instance, will be determined by each local government. To determine the amount of budget to be allocated for education within local governments, MONE recently has issued a guidance on the provision for minimum service standard (MSS) which can be used by local governments in calculating the education budget needed to provide education services in a particular year (Ministerial Decree No.129a/U/2004). Manuals on technical guidance on translating the education minimum service standard into expenditures have also been developed and piloted in a number of districts. With the issuance of this regulation and these manuals, it is expected that the calculation of the education budget needed for the local governments will be close to actual needs, and will guarantee equity and equality. So far the basis used for calculating the education budgets proposed by the local governments was less clear, and might vary from one region to another.

Unlike the DAU which is used at the discretion of the local governments, the DAK is a special purpose transfer that is supposed to finance capital expenditures which cannot be predicted or accommodated using the common allocation formula and those that are national commitments or priorities. This grant cannot be used for administrative costs or for the training and travel of staff and other such costs. DAK for education is the real special purpose grant for financing national priority infrastructure investments that are outside the scope of DAU funding, for instance, DAK for school rehabilitation program. The DAK has been

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designed as a matching grant, which requires the local government to contribute at least 10% of the total project expenditures. It has also been designed to provide incentives for districts to build infrastructure that meet national standards. The central government has reiterated its intention to use targeted DAK grants to districts as a mechanism to ensure equality among them and transparency in their operations.

In addition to DAU and DAK grants to regional governments, the central government is able to expand the resources available to the regions more directly by channelling funds from its own national budget (APBN) especially to public schools (MONE) and to madrasah schools (MORA). For instance in 2001 the total education budget allocated at central level for both routine and development budget amounted to over Rp 11 trillion, which accounted for about 5.7% of the total national government budget.

The amount of school revenues collected from the community in private schools have usually been determined by the school foundations in consultation with the parents and the community through parents association (before decentralization) or school committee (after decentralization). In public schools which in theory all the school expenditures should be borne by the governments, in practice parents are still required to pay certain amounts of fees to schools (e.g. monthly fees, entrance fees or other incidental fees) because of a lack of school funding to conduct necessary routine activities and development initiatives. In the past the amounts of fees were usually determined by parents’ association (BP3), and after decentralization these fees are determined by the school committees in the respective schools. However the government usually provide guidelines to ensure that the school fees collected from parents do not cause too much burden to the parents, and that poor parents are exempted from paying them.

4.3 Who decides the allocation or budgeting of revenue?

Noting that investing in education will secure human resource development which will subsequently determine the overall future development of the country such as economic, social, and technology, Indonesia has decided politically as put in the amendment of the 1945 state constitution, that at least 20% of the state budget should be allocated for education (Article 31). It is spelt out further in the new education law number 20/ 2003 (Article 49), that education funds excluding salary of


48

educators and service education expenditure, are allocated at a minimum of 20% of the national budget (APBN) and a minimum of 20% of the regional budget (APBD). Education funds provided by the central and local governments to units of education shall be in the form of a grant in accordance with the regulations which are in force. Education of funds provided by the central to local governments shall be in the form of a grant in accordance to the regulations which are in force.

The political will set out in the education law is still far from reality due to several reasons. As mentioned in the ESR (Vol.1, p.19-20), including salaries districts now spend, on average, about 40% of their APBD budgets on education. The reality is that, excluding salaries, districts spend less than 10%, or less than a half of what is stipulated in the Education Law. To double the education share in the APBD-minus salaries, districts will need to make significant reductions in the shares of other sectors, something which may not be politically possible. The APBN budget at central level accounts for much less than the expected 20% of the total government budget. In 2001, the education budget allocated at central level accounted for less than 6%. In 2005 the proposed education budget (routine and development) at the central level accounts for about 8% of the total APBN budget at central level. Despite the absence of data on budget allocations for education in the APBD and APBN, at a glance it is difficult if not impossible for the government to be able to allocate 20% of its total government budgets (even without minus salaries) for education, since the total available government budgets are limited and there are high demands from the other sectors as well. Thus the possibility to increase the allocated education budgets to the level as expected by the constitution and the law depends on the improvement of overall economic condition of the country.

Thus the overall allocation for education budgets from the government has been instructed by the laws. As indicated earlier, more specifically the allocations of education revenues are conducted in various ways depending on the types of education revenues, and on the levels of government hierarchy. The largest portion of education revenue is DAU allocated to the districts which are responsible to manage and implement pre-primary to senior secondary level education. The district government (together with local parliament) then will determine the allocations of the DAU budget allocated to the district by the central government, to finance all obligatory activities in the district, including education programs. Among factors being considered in the DAU allocation for education

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include for instance a routine budget to pay salaries and allowances of the existing teachers and other staff, budget to finance routine non-personnel activities such as paying bills for electricity, water, and telephone, buying school supplies, paying minor school maintenance and repair, etc. A small proportion of the DAU budget is usually set aside for supporting development activities. Thus the proportion of the DAU budget allocated for education will depend very much on the amount of routine expenditures obliged to be paid, and the priority scale for education in the district. The DAK for the local governments and deconcentration budgets at central level to be used at local levels are largely determined by the central authorities based on the available data regarding the education conditions and available resources from all the regions in the country.

The transfer of fund from the local government to schools or units of education has not been done in the form of block grants as mandated by the law. In practice the allocated operational budget for each school comprising a small portion of the total school budget, has been rigidly earmarked for its usage. The largest portion of school fund consisting of staff salaries and allowances are paid directly to the individual staff by the government. The school funds collected from the parents and community are the only source of fund which can be spent at the discretion of the school with approval of the school committee in public schools and with the approval of the school foundations in private schools.

4.4 Who decides about actual spending?

As illustrated in the previous sections related to this matter, according to the regulations, the schools or units of education are the ultimate institutions which decide actual spending of the allocated fund for the schools or units. In practice, however, the largest proportion of fund is meant to pay staff salaries and allowances which are paid directly by the government, and the remaining small proportion of fund for paying non-staff routine expenditures has normally been earmarked by the local government. What remains to be really decided by the school is spending the portion of the school budget which comes from the parents and community. Thus private schools have real authority to allocate and spend the available fund for school operation and development since most of the fund is collected from the community. In this case efficient and effective use of fund is more possible than in public schools. In good public schools attended by students from wealthy families, a large amount of


50

fund is normally collected from the parents. In these public schools more efficient and effective use of fund collected from parents is also possible.

In theory based on the regulations, under decentralization the actual spending of allocated fund is vested in the hands of schools or units of education which have the responsibility in providing education services to the clients or beneficiaries. With the exception of private schools and in a few public schools attended by students from wealthy families, the actual spending of allocated education fund is not determined by the schools or units of education, because the allocated fund has been rigidly earmarked for its usage. This condition will not encourage the efficient and effective use of public fund to provide better quality education to targeted clients.

5. The way the system works—resources

5.1 Who is accountable and what is the system of accountability? What is

measured? Has accountability increased to beneficiaries/ local groups? Is there wider participation beyond government?

Under decentralization, public schools are not only accountable to the government, but also to the general community as well. In the past except for private schools, schools were normally not obliged to report to the community regarding their accountability for program implementation. In some cases, schools provided incidental reports to the parents’ association meeting concerning the school progress and selected school activities interested to parents. At present with the establishment of school committee for each school as representatives of its stakeholders, the school is also required to provide regular reports regarding its program implementation as part of its accountability to the community. Since the establishment of a school committee for each school was required by the government in 2002, nearly all schools have established a school committee. However these school committees usually meet only one or twice a year, and their attention is focused on assisting schools in collecting additional fund for school operation and development. Rarely do they are involved in actual school planning, monitoring, and evaluation.

The school is accountable to provide reports to the government through the existing mechanism. The school gives reports on program implementation and its results to the school supervisor on a regular basis. The reports contain financial and administrative reports of the school

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operation, reports on physical school conditions, students and school staffing, teaching learning activities, students’ achievement, and school performance such as rates of drop outs, repetition and completion. The supervisor then passes on the reports to the relevant education office in the district. Beside this, financial audit to the projects conducted by the school is also conducted by the regional audit if the projects are funded by APBD budget, and by Inspectorate of line ministries (MONE and MORA), BPKP (Government Development Program Audit), or BPK (Government Central Audit) if the projects are funded by deconcentration fund at central level. The focus of the audit by regional and central level audit agencies is normally on financial reports to find out whether the allocated funds have been used appropriately, rather than on substantive matters which relate to the ultimate objectives of the projects such as how far the projects have benefited the intended clients or beneficiaries.

Under decentralization the accountability of program implementation can be done in a more efficient way since the chain of reporting to the government has been shortened with allocation of fund through DAU at district level. At present controlling of fund use by the schools is conducted mostly by the district, rather than by the central government agencies as in the past. With the establishment of a school committee for each school, the school is encouraged to provide better accountability to the community at large. Proper establishment and operation of the school committee will ensure that the school will get needed assistance in school planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. The school will get needed support from the community to achieve its objectives, and at the same time the school is encouraged to manage its program in a more efficient, transparent, participatory and accountable way. Good school management such as this will in turn attracts more community support to the school, which then will improve the overall school performance.

The impact of better school management under decentralization is reported in many schools involved in “school based management projects” such as CLCC, MBE, REDIP and the like. In those projects the accountability of the school to both the government and local community has increased dramatically, and which has resulted stronger support and participation fro the schools from the communities. With strong community participation and school accountability, the block grant-based education projects by the government have been implemented successfully at schools (e.g. school rehabilitation and construction projects using block grants). The provided block grants have been used


52

efficiently by the school committee to rehabilitate and build classrooms or schools, and the school committee has also been able to attract much bigger financial support from the community as matching funds to rehabilitate and build the school. 5.2 How is information gathered and used for the purposes of

accountability?

As a common practice, reports on administrative and financial matters together with the intended results of the project activities should be provided by the school or units of education which implement the project activities for accountability purposes. However these reports are specifically prepared for certain projects. In the past the school was required to provide a regular report regarding the overall school condition and performance to both the local and central government, as part of national planning program and accountability. Despite some weaknesses in its implementation, the collection of regular school reports from all schools at a national level was a useful endeavour. The collected information could be used for accurate and timely national education planning, and quality control. Such school data were normally collected and analysed and reported by an institution at central level such as Data and Information Centre in MONE.

After decentralization, such data is difficult to get since many schools are not willing to send the required data to the central ministry. The schools are now accountable to the local government rather than to the central ministry. As reported in ESR (Vol. 1 p. 12), MONE is no longer receiving local-level information from the data collection and information exchange systems that existed in the past, because the districts, now autonomous, no longer feel compelled to do so. In 2002, the annual school census yielded only a 30% response rate from schools as compared to 80% in 2000. This negative side effect to decentralization is not unique to Indonesia. However a way has to be found so that regular information from schools can be gathered at national level, although a method of data collection mechanism can be changed to suit the decentralized condition. Perhaps Indonesia can learn from the experience in Brazil in which under decentralization condition, they managed to develop an education information system with an integrated but decentralized structure that meet the country’s monitoring and evaluation needs.

5.3 Capacities and professional development – how developed--effective?

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In order that decentralization in education becomes successful in achieving a more efficient and equitable education system for the whole the country, it demands capacity building with regard to decentralized management for all the relevant personnel in the education sector especially at local levels. Since the enactment of decentralization laws in 1999, which began effective since 2000/ 2001, various endeavours have been conducted by the government with assistance from various donor agencies to conduct capacity building or professional development on matters related to education decentralization and school based management.

A number of pilot projects designed to develop capacities on school based management, which is a core component of decentralized education, have been initiated by the government with assistance from donor agencies. At primary school level, SBM (called CLCC project by donor agencies) has been initiated by the government assisted by UNESCO and UNICEF and various donor agencies since 1999/ 2000, which now has reached over 3000 primary schools covering more than 100 districts in 9 provinces. The project aims to improve education quality at primary school through school based management with emphasizing on three aspects namely, school management which is transparent, participatory and accountable, strong community participation to provide school support not limited to financial aspect but also including support for curricular activities, and effective and joyful teaching learning process (or active or contextual learning). Through this project, relevant school personnel in the pilot schools are trained in school based management including developing an integrated school budget involving school stakeholders in a participatory and transparent manner with proper accountable reporting. Prior to the development of an integrated school budget, every school is required to develop a medium school plan based on which school program activities are designed and implemented. Through this exercise the schools are trained in an efficient and effective planning and use on available school resources.

A similar effort such CLCC is being conducted by USAID (MBE project) which involves school based management have been conducted for both in primary and junior secondary schools in a number of districts in East and Central Java for the past two years. This MBE project also provide capacity building for education planning at sub-district and district planning to ensure efficient and effective use of scarce resources in the


54

district. Capacity building for education planning at school and district levels has also been conducted through a pilot project conducted by the government with assistance from JICA (REDIP project). AusAID recently has just initiated a partnership project in East Java with emphasis on effective learning and school based management as well.

From the project reports and other information based on observation and verbal reports, the projects have improved the capacities for the relevant personnel at school and in the districts in planning and implementing education programs using school based management principles. The useful experiences from these different projects however have not been coordinated sufficiently by MONE at central level to get a consensus on best practices which can be applied in the whole districts. MONE staff in charge of the project coordination have not take a full advantage from the project experiences to make preparation in mainstreaming the best practices to the whole country.

Various projects run by the government (MONE) are designed to improve access and quality of education in the districts, which in their implementation require capacity building on school-based or community-based planning, since in order to get access to project funds in the form of block grants, the schools have to make a proper proposal based on local needs and conditions. These projects normally provide training on education planning related to school or community based management for relevant staff in school and district levels, to guarantee the effective use of the block grants. It is not known how the various trainings conducted by many central level projects have been documented to identify their effectiveness and usefulness for wider adoption by the districts.

At central level within MONE, there is a non-structural unit called UFPD which is assigned to develop tools and manuals to assist the local governments in implementing education programs under decentralization. The unit staffed with only a few staff members with the assistance of consultants from donor agencies like ADB and the World Bank have been able to produce standards for providing minimum education services by the districts together with various technical manuals for planning at local government levels. The manuals are now being piloted in five districts before final adoption.

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5.4 Effectiveness and efficiency of system in delivering quality of EFA

5.4.1 Has resource allocation changed as a result of decentralization?

The significant change on resource allocation is articulated in the Fourth Amendment (11 August 2002) of 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia, article 31, verse (4): “The state shall give priority to the education budget by allocating at least twenty percent of the state’s as well as of the regional budgets to meet the requirements of implementing national education”. This allocation of funds is further elaborated in the Education Law, No 20, 2003, article 49 verse (1): Education funds, excluding salary of educators and services education expenditures, are allocated at a minimum 20 percent of the National budget (APBN) and a minimum of 20 percent of the regional budget (APBD)”. According to the Education Law salary of teachers appointed by government are allocated by the national budget and education provided by central and local government to educational institution shall be in the form of grants. In practice, however, the allocation of 20 percent from both national and local government has not yet been achieved due to the steady economic development as the impact of the 1998 economic crises. The largest portion of education revenue is for teachers’ salaries, allowances, paying electricity, water, and telephone bills, school supplies, maintenance and minor repair. The provision of grants directly to education institution or schools has already been implemented. This resulted in greater competition, dynamic initiatives, as well as variation in school development. However, there is a tendency of ‘the rich get better, and the poor remains left behind. Therefore, the pro-poor policy to improve financial and professional supports has to be designed and implemented.

5.4.2. Is the quality of education improving?

The improvement of access and quality on students’ enrolment has been explained in Section C, 4.a. This section attempts to describe the achievement of quality measured by indicators of educational inputs and outputs. The input indicators include the availability of textbooks; good proportion of teachers with adequate expertise and relevant training; and the adequacy of school condition and available support system. Indicators of educational output include the level of students’ academic achievement and the level of school’s achievement.


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Generally, educational system works in the framework of input-process-output. Input, which is processed by certain methods and with a particular composition, will become two different products. The short-term product is called output and the long-term product is called outcome. Input in the system of education consists of curriculum, students, teachers, facilities, fund, and many others. An educational process is the whole learning processes involving the interaction of all components of input. The educational output includes students’ capability that can be analysed by identifying students’ achievements. The educational outcome is the improvement of educational quality that can be analysed by identifying the number of graduates who continue their schooling or who are able to earn a living. Thus, the quality of input and process determines the quality of products of either short-term products or long-term products.

Some research has identified that teachers and books are the most dominant elements of schools. Understandably, at the lower level of education, teachers’ ability to teach and guide students absolutely determines the success of students’ mastery of learning materials. At the higher level of education, teachers’ role is less dominating due to higher level of students’ ability in understanding learning materials such as those in a book. Standard and curriculum are the main references in teaching and learning processes. The selection of learning materials refers to curriculum and teachers should refer to the standard of ability in their teaching.

The indicators used to monitor the quality of education are the criteria of educational input and output (short-term educational products), which are detailed as presented below:

Indicators of educational input

Access to textbooks at primary school – The percentage of access of primary education to some textbooks such as Indonesian language, maths, and natural science textbooks in Indonesia varied. Access to Indonesian language textbooks ranked the highest percentage (85.30% on an average) compared to that of maths textbooks (82.87% on an average), and natural science (57.43% on an average) in the academic year 2000/2001.

Access to textbooks at junior secondary school – The percentage of junior high school’s access to Indonesian language, maths, English language, natural science, physics, and biology textbooks in Indonesia

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varied. Access to Indonesian language textbooks reached the percentage of 90.25% on the average, access to maths textbooks was 89.35 , and access to natural science, English language, and social science was respectively 53.92%, 75.24% and 77.04% in academic year 2000/2001. Generally, the ability to provide textbooks varies from one province to another. There are provinces which possess a collection above the national average and there are also provinces which have lower access to textbooks.

Qualification of teachers at primary school – The average percentage of primary school teacher qualification in Indonesian was very low (33.81%). DKI Jakarta, West Java, Bali, D.I. Yogyakarta, East Java, and Riau were the 6 provinces, which had adequately qualified teachers. The other 20 provinces, in contrast, had inadequately qualified teachers. DKI Jakarta achieved the highest percentage of qualified teachers (71.11%), while North Sulawesi reached the lowest percentage of qualified teachers (5.29%). Below is the Table showing the proportion of adequately qualified primary school teachers in the academic year 2000/2001

Qualification of teachers at junior secondary school – The average percentage of junior high school subject teacher qualification in Indonesian varied, for example, Indonesian language teachers (46.99%), English language teachers (45.45%), Maths teachers (50.93%), natural science teachers (54.62%), and social science teachers (48.29%). Seven provinces were identified to have qualified Indonesian language teachers above average. Six provinces, 8 provinces, 10 provinces, and 9 provinces were identified to have adequately qualified teachers in—reflectively--English language subject, Maths subject, natural science subject, and social science subject. Below is the Table showing the proportion of adequately qualified junior high school (SLTP) teachers in the academic year 2000/2001

Adequacy of school and library – In the academic year of 2000/2001 the percentage of physically good classroom condition is 41.6 % of primary school (PS), 87.6% of junior secondary school (JSS), 92.6% of senior secondary school (SSS), and 94.5% of vocational secondary school (VSS). It can be seen that that vocational schools have the best condition of school, while only few primary school buildings were considered decent. There is no data available on school library in PS, however, the availability of library in JSS is 73.4%, SSS is 64.4%, and


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VSS is 73.2%. Again attention should be made for improving data and access to the most populous school that is primary school.

Academic achievement – The study of TIMSS-R in 2000/2001 that is designed to study 13-year old learners’ ability and knowledge in Maths and natural sciences, indicates Indonesia’s achievement for the subject of Natural Sciences is in the ranks 32nd of 38 participants. Taiwan, Singapore, Hungary, Japan, and South Korea are the best five countries. Indonesian position is, however, better than Turk, Tunisia, Chile, Philippines, Morocco, and South Africa. In Maths, Indonesia ranks 34th of 38 participants. Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and Belgium are the five best countries in this subject. Nevertheless, Indonesia’s position is still far better than Chile, Philippines, Morocco, and south Africa. In the level of ASEAN, Indonesian 13- year old learners’ achievement in Maths and natural sciences ranks 4th, one level below Thailand but above Philippines. The crucial problem in the recent educational system is low capability of reading, writing, and counting. For example, World Bank No. 16369-IND (Greanery, 1992) reported that according to IEA (International Association for Education Achievement), the primary school fourth grade students’ reading ability in East Asia is at the lowest level. The following is the average scores of primary school students’ reading ability: 75.5 (Hong Kong), 74.0 (Singapore), 65.1 (Thailand), 52.6 (Philippines), and 51.7 (Indonesia). From here, it can be inferred that Indonesian primary school students can only take up 30% of the given reading materials. Further, there is found out that Indonesian students have difficulty answering questions of comprehension categories. Such a low achievement of Indonesian students in reading, writing, and counting is caused by badly implemented system of evaluation.

Scores of examinations – The total average of the net exit examination index of JSS students in the academic year 2000/2001 was 5.11. The highest total average of the net exit examination index was achieved by D.I. Yogyakarta province (5.85), and the lowest total average (4.21) was by West Nusa Tenggara (NTB). Seven provinces were identified to achieve the net exit examination index above average. The total average of the net exit examination index per subject was 5.85 (Civics), 5.24 (Indonesian language), 4.87 (Maths), 4.90 (Social Science), 4.96 (Natural Science), and 4.81 (the English language). Some provinces were prominent in achieving the highest total average of the net exit examination index in a particular subject or some subjects, that is, DI Yogyakarta excelled in Civics (6.59), Social Science (5.62), Natural

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Science (5.87), and English language (5.66), Bali excelled in Indonesian language (6.02), and Central Java in Maths (5.77).

In addition, in the academic year 2000/2001 some provinces showed the lowest achievement in the total average of the net exit examination index in a particular subject or some subjects: Papua in Civics (4,50), Papua in Indonesian language (3.89), Gorontalo in Maths (3.58), East Nusa Tenggara in Social Science (3.65), West Nusa Tenggara in Natural Science (3.47), and West Nusa Tenggara in English language (3.78).

5.4.3 Have the targets been met? Are they likely to be? Why/why not?

As mentioned earlier in Chapter 1, Section IV, the target of EFA for quality improvements are: 1) the quality control standard for educational quality; 2) the empowerment of institutional capacities; 3) the improvement of the quality of educational implementation; and 4) the promotion of stakeholders’ awareness about and commitment to improving the quality of education. The targets have been met by the provision of minimum services standards, school-based, cluster-based, and locally-based financial, curriculum, and assessment management system as well as professional development system. Despite the variety of school academic achievement, condition, and provision of teachers, textbooks, and libraries; the target are likely to be achieved gradually. This is because the commitment to school improvement and better quality of graduates both from the government and community are improved. The provision of budget will be increased in the 2005 fiscal year, although it has not reached 20% of the allocated budget required by the Education Law. Therefore, the target to have basic education for all and educational quality for all by year 2015 is predicted to be difficult if the provision of 20% budget allocation is not fulfilled by central and local government.

5.4.4 Are differentiated needs being reached?

Differentiation are being reached through the component of curriculum and exit performance standards, acceleration program for smart students, program for gifted students, program for special education, and the program for disadvantaged groups through literacy and equivalency programs, adult education program through life skill, continuing education and internship program, as well as the specific program for ethnic minorities, and remote areas. The differentiated curriculum


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provides national and local curriculum, minimum competency standards, curriculum with international standards, and the curriculum for the excellent school. In addition, different need of language instruction is also being reached by allowing school to have local languages used in the lower primary school and foreign languages if necessary.

5.4.5 Are marginalized being reached?

In response to the crisis, the marginalized are being reached through Social Safety Net program. The purpose of Social Safety Net program is (i) to mitigate the adverse impact of the crisis to the poor and (ii) to sustain the investment level of basic social services especially to the poor. The fundamental principle for Social Safety Net program is as follows. First, is keeping children of the poor families in schools through a scholarship program for primary, junior secondary and senior secondary levels. Second, is preventing the deterioration of education quality by providing block grants to primary and junior secondary at poor areas.

In addition, the marginalized are being reached through retrieval, open school, equivalency and distance education programs. Limited block-grant for the marginalized students are available to be used by the community to reach the marginalized groups i.e. for child trafficking, child labour, street children, children in traditional religion school (madrasah diniyah and pondok pesantren which does not provide formal schooling), as well as for students with law, health and social problems for example prisoner and ex/prisoner, people living with HIV/AIDS, the victim of drug abused, and ex/prostitutes.

5.4.6 What about non-formal education? Private education?

What arrangement concerning resource allocation and management?

The budget is allocated for non-formal education that includes early childhood education, literacy program, equivalency program, and continuing education, internship, and life skill programs. Early childhood education aims at stimulating physical and mental growth of children outside the family circle before entering primary education that can be held in formal school system or out-of-school education. Among the types of pre-school education available are kindergarten at the formal school and play groups and day-care centres at the out-of-school. Kindergarten is

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provided for children age 5 to 6 years for one to two years, while play groups and day-care centres are attended by children at least 3 year old. Out of school system provides both the general and religious education. Out of school general education services is provided through Learning Package A at the primary school level, Learning Package B at the junior secondary school level, and Learning Package C at the senior secondary school level. Service-related education and vocational education also include courses, group learning such as packet A, B, Income Generating Program, or any other option like apprenticeship. Out of school religious education is provided through traditional pesantren (boarding religious education).Beside that, there are various levels of vocational training courses provided.

5.5.What effect has extra-budgetary finance had on EFA implementation?

How is directed and utilized? Is it implementation different that prevailing system? For instance its use for recurrent or development of expenditure, its control monitoring and evaluation?

The effect of extra-budgetary finance is the commitment of district and provincial government to achieve the EFA goals includes (i) enrolling all students through to the end of junior secondary level, (ii) ensuring that poorer and disadvantaged children have full and equal access to schools that provide an appealing learning environment and effective instruction, and (iii) providing education that is of acceptable quality and is relevant to the economy and society. Under the decentralization the governor and the Head of District government (bupati) are challenged to perform educational achievement in order to achieve the goals of EFA. The flow and allocation of fiscal resources from the central government to the district governments and from the district governments to the schools through block grant have raised initiatives of school and district administrators in utilizing resources and adjusting its expenditure based on school and local needs. However, this does not mean that resources are used more efficiently and more equitably than before. Leaderships at all levels still a significant factor for an efficient use of the block grant. There is the case that the Head of district has a policy for free education of basic education, however, due to the limited budget, the operational cost of school activities does not included. Thus, access enrolment rate might be improved at the expense of quality of teaching-learning process. Under decentralization, quality improvement is given high priority; however, improving quality will mean identifying those institutional arrangements including standards, structures, and incentives for teachers, and free


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education for students. The use of resources can be efficiently used if school staff and district administrators focus on the improvement of teachers’ and students’ performance and school accountability. Monitoring and controlling school expenditure of the national budget are still carried out in conventional ways of meeting the administrative purposes.

5.6 Have communities or the private sector been encouraged to mobilize

financial resources? What are the arrangements and have these worked to further effective EFA implementation?

Under decentralization, communities and private sectors are more encouraged to be involved in decision making of education policy. Public debate, open forum, written suggestion of communities is accommodated respectively. The local government is facilitated by Education Council in providing advice for educational decision making at district and municipality level; providing financial support and concepts for educational provision; controlling the application of transparency and accountability for educational provision and finance; and acting as mediator for executive, legislative, and community in the development and provision of education. School committee has similar task to those of education council. However school committee works at school level. Those bodies are independent to the government.

As mentioned earlier that salary took up the largest portion of education revenue. Schools heavily depend on parents’ contribution for improving their performance. Thus parents and community play very important to increase education standard by increasing initiatives and mobilizing financial resources. Private sectors are encouraged to support school facilities, extracurricular activities, scholarship for children, health or nutrition program in schools, and in-service training for teachers. Under decentralization, publishers are able to provide open sponsorship for in-service training of syllabus development, although is still considered as only advertising their products of school textbooks.

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6. Analysis of successes and pitfalls

6.1. What difference has the decentralized system – teacher deployment

and management and resource mobilization and management – made to EFA implementation?

Under decentralization, the policy recruitment, retention, transfer and promotion of a teacher is closer to local needs, faster and shorter of bureaucratic process than before. This is of course benefited to school and parent to have teachers as required. The district and school are able to hire new teachers based on their needs at their own expenses. This flexibility will be benefited to districts/municipal and schools which have better finance sources. The lower income districts and school are also having opportunities to apply for a block grant from the provincial or central level to have contract teacher or to support school activities. In professional development system, decentralization provide a more dynamic initiative, competitive, and selective program. Since the funding of in-service teacher training is localized, content, instructors, program, and standard of competencies for the training are decided at local level based on their needs. Clearly that greater autonomy for district and school levels will require better decision making process. Once the district administrator or the principal take an unsuitable decision will effect directly to inefficiency in the implementation of EFA. Resource allocation and mobilization will also depend on the capacity of district and school leaders. Decentralization requires better skills on resource management and mobilization to have effective and efficient use for achieving national standard. In terms of student enrolment, although the quantitative national data on the increase student enrolment of basic education as a result of decentralization has not yet available, there are cases that district educational administrators are able to increase school enrolment through formal and non-formal education. However, the provision of greater funding to provide more access is still decided centrally although the funding is deconcentrated to districts. The policy of retrieval program aims at inviting back drop-out children; open school policy, literacy and equivalency program are designed at central level. Leadership at all levels in district/municipal scale contributes to better EFA implementation. Under a better leadership of a bupati (head of district) or a walikota


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(mayor), Head of District/Municipal Education Office will gain a better support to the EFA implementation.

6.2 Has there been increased local accountability/participation?

Local accountability is increasing in teacher recruitment, designing syllabuses and localized curriculum, selecting textbooks, and better financial system. This has explained in detail in Section C.1.a and E 1. Participation of the locals are greater than before. However, the locals still need more clarity in utilizing the minimum service standards, accreditation and standardization system, as well as reporting system to parent and community. 6.3 What has worked? What hasn’t worked? Why?

Decentralized policy on teacher deployment, professional development, textbook and localized curriculum has worked in spite of the quality of the services. However, a more transparent system in teacher deployment has not yet work satisfactorily due to a relative personal interpretation of competency of the teacher/teacher candidate and a tendency of favouritism, nepotism, corrupted decision and insufficient knowledge of gender equity. Textbooks provision has worked in a decentralized manner, although a tendency of a transparency needs to be enhanced. Localized curriculum has worked at a wider scale mostly in Java and Bali, and prominent district and cities of other provinces. This is because of lack of capacity and or resources to have better implementation on local curriculum design. Greater access has also worked although still limited to the available budget. Learning outcomes has not achieved satisfactory results due to mismatching solution on this issue. Often decision to improve learning outcomes of students is taken to provide more training in mastering subject matter or theory on pedagogy, while the actual needs is professional support to classroom practice or the availability of library or good quality textbooks.

6.4 Specifically, have teacher recruitment, development, training and

performance monitoring practices significantly contributed to:

• Greater teacher motivation

Teacher recruitment, development, training and performance monitoring practices do not directly provide greater motivation to teachers. As

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described earlier minimum service standards and accreditation criteria for schools and teachers are currently being developed. But, there is not much clarity that how the information from the accreditation and quality assurance processes will be used directly for teacher promotion or teachers to improvement of their performance. However, the provision of incentive from district or municipal government does provide greater motivation to teachers. In addition, the central government budget allocated for incentives teacher work in remote area has also provide motivation for the teachers. Teacher forum provide better motivation for the teacher. In this forum, teacher can share creativity, innovation, solution or even share frustration. The program of the forum that is designed by, from, and for the teachers has contributed significantly to improve teacher motivation. In addition, democratization in education has provided greater motivation of the teachers to be involved in a newly established a kind local teacher association to share their aspirations.

• Enhanced professional competence

The implementation of school-based and teacher forum do enhance teachers’ professional competence. This is because the teachers feel more confident to communicate with each others then before. Although the school-based management (SBM) will create burden and tension for the new teacher involved in the program, at least the SBM provides plenty rooms and opportunities to practice and experience school level professional and leadership development. In addition the establishment of district education board and school committee has challenged teachers to enhance their competence.

• Enriched working environment

Working environment is enhanced in schools in which the practice of teacher forum and school-based management is well managed. A more lively discussion on professional development arise when schools design their own syllabus by interpreting and attempting to achieve national curriculum and standard framework.

• Better school-community interaction

Good school will utilize these forum and SBM to have more interaction with other school staff, upper educational administrators, school


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principals, school committees, private sectors, universities, and parents to work together to improve students’ achievement levels.

6.5 Specifically, has the timeline and adequacy of fund flow improved and

has this made a difference to the quality of service delivery at the school level?

The timeline and adequacy of fund flow have relatively improved and has made a difference to the quality of service delivery at the school level. In Indonesia, availability of better funding at school level is the most significant factor to achieve the quality of service delivery. The unit of decentralization of district/municipal government is more manageable than a province in term of size, faster process and shorter bureaucratic decision making. However, this heavily rely on the leadership of the Head of Districts/municipal, and Head of Education Office at district and municipal level and principal at school levels.

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III. Lesson learnt and road map for sustaining ongoing reforms

3.1 Lesson learnt

a. Recruitment – Recruitment has more benefited than before to local people in a way that teacher management is more suitable to local conditions, needs and potentials. The district with more resources and budgets are having more choices to hire more qualified teachers based on their needs. The attempt for teachers’ professional development is more effective than before, because the districts are able to provide in-service teacher training or capacity building based on their local needs and potentials through internship program in an advanced school, district, province or even overseas.

b. Deployment – Districts are able to apply more teachers and more

qualified teachers to central government directly. In addition, the districts are able to hire more and better teachers locally.

c. Professional development – The autonomy of pedagogy of teachers

has increased because the teachers have a freedom to develop their own ways of achieving standards, design and apply their own syllabuses, learning materials, lesson plans and classroom-based assessments. The involvement of teachers in professional development has increased through peer teaching in subject matter teacher forum, mentoring in in-service training, or working as subject specialist in different schools.

d. Democratization – Aspiration of teachers is greater than before. At

this moment, in addition to the teacher union (PGRI), there are also independent local teacher association accommodating local interests, career and professional development.

e. Beneficiaries to parents and students – Parents have more choices

to spend budget for their children education which depends on their financial affordability. High income parents are able to spend for expensive schools with better standards, and low income parents are able to provide adequate education with minimum service standards.


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Students may benefited for scholarship that often offered by district to local people.

The decentralization requires teachers, parents, educational administrators, educators of universities, non-government agencies, public figure, religious leaders and private sectors; academicians or subject specialist, curriculum specialist, educational researchers, and related community representation to adjust or customized national standard into local condition, needs and potentials, as well as to provide local standards. However, the following conditions may lead to hamper the best result in education:

f. Pre-service training – Decentralization provides varieties of needs to

teacher preparation as required by minimum qualification standards for each education level, however, the universities responsible for teacher preparation remains less progressive to meet the intended outcomes of their graduates.

g. Upgrading program – The program provides more academic

achievement rather than the actual teaching and learning experiences to respond to professional competencies of teachers that include productive pedagogy, authentic assessment, and writing syllabuses.

h. Deployment – The recruitment, retention, deployment, and promotion

system of teachers is not transparent enough. Favouritism, nepotism, by passing criteria, selling information, and academic fraud are often the case of malpractice in teacher management.

i. Community involvement – The degree of involvement and

participation of the community in education development at district level is limited due to insufficient capacity of district administrators, limited budget allocated for education, and the availability of expertise in dealing with new approaches of decentralized-oriented on education management, content, methods and assessment procedure.

3.2 Road map for sustaining ongoing reforms

a. Provide clear guidelines for accreditation and standardization system which are more accessible by educational stake holders. These include the list of accreditation and standardization institution, clear tasks and functions of stakeholder involved in accreditation and standardization

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processes, criteria of accredited and standardized institution (staffing, budgeting, facilities, resources, and program), criteria of audit system, and criteria of success of the institution.

b. Reform the structure and processes of the Ministry of National

Education (MoNE) so that it can support teacher profession by developing national policies and harmonizing with district education policies; designing innovative program, allocating funding, and planning better investment to teacher professional development. At the moment, the MoNE plans to restructure its department to have a separate Directorate General of Education Personnel. In the current structure, this institution is under the Directorate General of Primary and Secondary School and under the Directorate General of Out of School and Youth.

c. Reinforce a national education information system consistent with

decentralization though multi media. It is worth investment to improve flow of effective information system through printed material and ICT development. Education newsletters are available at limited copy from few institution at central and district levels. The digital gap of the education office should be improved to have a sustainable development of the ongoing reform of education including teacher deployment.

d. Socialize the minimum service standard of all types of education

service. Often the standards are not well understood because of limited access to have wider, in-depth, and better quality of information on education services.

e. Establish a clear funding mechanism that include direct transfer of

resources to schools and transparent reporting system to disclose to parent and communities that is easy to implement and to monitor. School have to be well equipped and ensured in receiving adequate block grants to cover their basic operating expenses, including the costs of teaching and non-teaching staff, instructional supplies, some staff development, the routine activities of the school committee, the maintenance of a school database, the dissemination of information to parents and the community, utilities, and light repair of the school buildings and other maintenance. School should increase their capacities to provide transparent information that is accessible by all stakeholders from various sectors.


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f. Capacity Building to improve competencies of monitoring and

evaluation of school progress, school development, budget allocation and use, teaching practices, availability of resources, syllabus development and learning outcomes as well as the capacity of resource mobilization.

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Annexes


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Annex 1: Report Guidelines

1. Country background

(a) Brief synopsis of education system: structure, institutional organization and management; any recent or ongoing reforms; arrangements for providing learning opportunities for youth and adults.

(b) Nature of decentralization – broad strokes including political, economic and social context.

(c) The EFA challenge: current educational statistics pertinent to EFA goals and progress achieved.

(d) EFA plans: vision and modalities; how existing governance structures have helped to accelerate the pace and quality of EFA implementation.

(e) Reliance on external funds: percentage of education budget/expenditure; amounts, sources, types, use; recurrent versus development expenditure.

2. Teachers

(a) Description of responsibilities and authority levels: (i) Who determines the qualifications for education personnel? (ii) Who actually hires and fires? (iii) Who can transfer teachers? (iv) Who sets the pay scale? (v) Who determines increases and promotions?

(b) The way the system works: (i) Who is accountable (and to whom) and what is the system of accountability? What is measured? Has accountability increased to beneficiaries/local groups? Is there wider participation beyond government? (ii) How is information gathered and used for the purposes of accountability? (iii) Capacities and professional development – how developed – effective? (iv) Effectiveness and efficiency of system in delivering quality EFA:

1. Is the quality of education improving? 2. Have targets been met? Are they likely to be? Why/why not? 3. Are differentiated needs being met?

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4. Are the marginalized being reached? 5. What about non-formal education? Private education? What arrangements concerning teacher deployment and management?

3. Resources

(a) Description of responsibilities and authority levels in answer to questions – resources:

(i) Who decides about sources of funds? (ii) Who decides how much revenue? (iii) Who decides the allocation or budgeting of revenue? (iv) Who decides about actual spending?

(b) The way the system works: (i) Who is accountable and what is the system of accountability? What is measured? Has accountability increased to beneficiaries/local groups? Is there wider participation beyond government? (ii) How is information gathered and used for the purposes of accountability? (iii) Capacities and professional development – how developed – effective? (iv) Effectiveness and efficiency of system in delivering quality EFA:

1. Has resource allocation changed as a result of decentralization? How has this impacted EFA goals? 2. Is the quality of education improving? 3. Have targets been met? Are they likely to be? Why/why not? 4. Are differentiated needs being met? 5. Are the marginalized being reached? 6. What about non-formal education? Private education? What arrangements concerning resource allocation and management?

(v) What effect has extrabudgetary finance had on EFA implementation? How is it directed and utilized? Is its implementation different from the prevailing system, for instance, its use for recurrent or development expenditure, its control, monitoring and evaluation? (vi) Have communities or the private sector been encouraged to mobilize financial resources? What are the arrangements and have these worked to further effective EFA implementation?

4. Analysis of successes and pitfalls

(i) What differences has the decentralized system – teacher deployment and management and resource mobilization and management – made to EFA implementation?


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(ii) Has there been increased local accountability/ participation? (iii) What has worked? What has not worked? Why? (iv) Specifically, have teacher recruitment, deployment, training and performance monitoring practices significantly contributed to:

1. Greater teacher motivation 2. Enhanced professional competence 3. Enriched working environment 4. Better school-community interaction

(v) Specifically, has the timeliness and adequacy of fund flow improved and has this made a difference to the quality of service delivery at the school level?

5. Lessons

Following the critical analysis above of why the system works in the way described – whether effectively or ineffectively – it is important to consider how the reforms in teacher deployment and resource mobilization and management were initiated, internalized and sustained. It would be particularly helpful if the reports focused on how the effectiveness of the system is being measured, what capacity building has been or is still required, how needs have been identified for improving the system (of teacher and financial deployment and management), and whether the attempts to address those needs have been sufficient and/or appropriate. This will enable the focus to be on the final two issues below: (a) Lessons learned; (b) Road map for sustaining ongoing reforms.

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Annex 2: The Programme of the Seminar

UNESCO Seminar on EFA Implementation: Teacher and Resource Management in the Context of Decentralization

6–8 January 2005 6 JANUARY 2005 8:00 Registration of Participants 9:00 Welcome Remarks by Dr S. K. Rao, Principal, ASCI 9:10 Theme Setting by Dr Mir Asghar Husain, Director, ED/EPS, UNESCO, Paris 9:30 Inaugural Address by Dr Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy, Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh 9:50 Vote of Thanks by Dr Abby Riddell, Senior Programme Specialist, ED/EPS,

UNESCO, Paris 10:00 UNESCO High Tea 11:00 Synthesis Paper Presentation on Ten Countries: Dr R. Govinda, National Institute for

Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA) 12:00 Plenary Questions to NIEPA and Country Representatives 1:00 Lunch 2:00 Working Groups on Identified Problem Areas: Designation and Discussion/ Sharing of

National Experiences 3:30 Tea 4:00 Panel Presentations by two Indian States: Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh on

Teacher Deployment and Resource Management at State Level; Comments by National Participants: India, China, Brazil and Pakistan

5:00 Plenary Discussion on Issues Raised in Panel Presentations 6:00 Close 6:30 Cocktails by ASCI at ASCI campus, Bella Vista, Khairtabad, Hyderabad 8:00 Andhra Pradesh State Reception at Jubilee Hall, Nampally, Hyderabad 7 JANUARY 2005 9:00 Report Presentation and Plenary Discussion on Populations in Tribal Areas: Dr I. V.

Subba Rao, Principal Secretary, Andhra Pradesh 10:30 Coffee 11:00 Report Presentation and Plenary Discussion on Women from Poorer Sections of Indian

Society: by Mr Zahid Ali Khan, Siasat

12:30 Lunch 1:30 Tasks for afternoon explained; three Working Groups on (1) Teacher Deployment and

Management; (2) Resource Management; and (3) Capacity Building Lessons (Tea served during working group sessions)

3:30 Report back from Working Groups 5:00 Close 8:00 Siasat Reception at Taramati Baradari, Golconda Fort, Hyderabad


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8 JANUARY 2005 9:00 Moving Beyond the ‘Issues’ to the Problem Areas Requiring Attention: Identification

of Potential Assistance? – Plenary followed by Working Groups 11:00 Report back: The Way Forward 11:45 High Tea 12:15 Valedictory Addresses:

Dr S. K. Rao, Principal, ASCI Dr Mir Asghar Husain, Director, ED/EPS, UNESCO, Paris Mr K. M. Acharya, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India Dr Mohan Kanda, Chief Secretary, Government of Andhra Pradesh, India Vote of Thanks, Mrs Leticia Aguirre, Ministry of Public Education, Mexico

1:15 Lunch

Decentralization of education in Indonesia

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