Name : Tedi Gunawan (Student ID 5521180066-5)

Course : Development Strategies

Assignment : Strength and weakness of education system in Indonesia

Introduction of education system in Indonesia

The Ministry of Education and Culture and the Ministry of Religious Affairs are responsible for
education in Indonesia. In Indonesia, all citizens must complete twelve years of compulsory
education. Indonesia's education system consists of four levels of education: primary education
(grades 1–6), secondary education (grades 7–9), secondary education (grades 10–12) and higher
education. For further information, Islamic schools are under the responsibility of the Ministry of
Religious Affairs.

Schools are run by the government or private sectors in Indonesia. Some private schools refer to
themselves as "global plus schools," meaning that their curriculum meets the requirements set by the
Ministry of Education, in particular using English as an instructional medium or offering an
international curriculum instead of the national curriculum. In Indonesia, there are around 170,000
primary schools, 40,000 junior-secondary schools, and 26,000 high schools. The Ministry of National
Education (MoNE) accounts for 84% of these schools and the remaining 16% for the Ministry of
Religious Affairs (MoRA). At the beginning of 2019, the number of teachers in Indonesia reached
2,755,020 people. The highest number of teachers in elementary school is 1,467,461. Then followed
by junior high school as many as 643,266 teachers, 314,619 in high school, 304,634 in vocational
school and 25,040 in SLB (special school).

https://databoks.katadata.co.id/datapublish/2019/06/23/berapa-jumlah-sekolah-di-indonesia

Strength and Weakness of the education system in Indonesia

Education is described as a planned effort to create a good study environment and educational system
so that students can actively improve their own religious and spiritual ability, knowledge, personality,
intellect, actions, and innovation for themselves, other people, and the country.

Indonesia has made enormous progress in improving access to education in recent decades. The New
Order invested heavily in building new public schools, especially primary schools, and recruiting
teachers during the 1970s and early 1980s when it was awash with petrodollars due to the boom in
international oil prices. Post-New Order governments have continued to construct new schools,
focusing on junior secondary and senior secondary schools, and recruit large numbers of teachers. By
2018, the country had over 300,000 schools and almost 2,8 million teachers. In term of access to
education, Indonesian children start school earlier and stay longer than ever before in kindergarten.
And government spending on education has grown markedly since 2002 when the national
constitution was amended to require the central and regional governments to spend at least 20 percent
of their respective budgets on education.
However, while education spending is now at a level similar to other lower-middle-income countries,
it is still less than comparable neighboring countries. In improving educational quality and learning
outcomes, Indonesia has only made relatively little progress. Evaluations of the country's education
system suggest it is afflicted with poor quality tuition, poor learning outcomes, inadequate facilities,
and disciplinary issues. The performance of the country in global structured student achievement tests
are low compared to other countries, including Southeast Asia.

https://www.oecd.org/pisa/data/2018database/

Other factors in describing the low quality (weakness) of education in Indonesia is many teachers
lacked the basic subject knowledge and pedagogical skills to be effective educators. In 2012, the
central government introduced a competency test for teachers to assess their subject knowledge and
pedagogical skills. The almost three million teachers who took the test in 2015 scored on average
53.02, below the designated target of 55. 1 The enactment of Law 14/2005 on Teachers and Lecturers
led to the introduction of a teacher certification program that linked generous pay rises to
improvements in qualifications and skills. However, numerous studies have shown that this program
has had little, if any, positive impact on teacher subject knowledge or pedagogical skills or, indeed,
student learning.2

Last, Education and Cultural Affairs Minister Nadiem Makarim (former Gojek CEO) is planning to
implement a flexible curriculum for Indonesia's education system. The Minister argued that
standardizing a system in a largely diverse nation will only create negative results. He asserted that
Indonesia cannot be managed under one standard. He also stressed that they will drop the format of
school subjects. The composition of the minimum competency assessment is similar to the PISA,
which consists of tests on students’ literacy and numerical competence and also, a character survey.
Furthermore, starting in 2021, the implementation of the national exam which evaluates students’
competency on school subjects will see its format revamped with the minimum competency
assessment and character survey.

References:
 https://databoks.katadata.co.id/datapublish/2019/06/23/berapa-jumlah-sekolah-di-indonesia
 https://www.oecd.org/pisa/data/2018database/

1
“Rata-rata Nilai UKG di Bawah Standar”, Okezone News, 30 December 2015,
https://news.okezone.com/read/2015/12/30/65/1277618/rata-rata-nilai-ukg-di-bawah-standar.
2
See Chang et al, Teacher Reform in Indonesia; and World Bank, Indonesia: Teacher Certification and Beyond, Report No 94019-ID
(Jakarta: World Bank, 2015).