The education divide in Indonesia:Four essays on determinants of unequal access to and quality of education

Improving access to and quality of education is necessary condition to prepare a skilled workforce to advance a country from one economic level to the next level. However, increasing access to and quality of education alone is not sufficient without equitable learning for all. Equal opportunity on education affects an individual’s life because it has the potential to improve the ability to think critically, to solve problems and to make appropriate decisions. Indonesian government simultaneously improves access to and quality of education for all citizens. Although its efforts had noticeable impact, many of the targets to improve access to and quality of education nevertheless still have not been achieved and education inequality is still persistent. This dissertation studies the complex and multifaceted phenomenon of inequality in access to and quality of education. It uses analyses drawn from a multi-level multi-resource framework involving various nation-wide surveys, administrative datasets and experts’ interview data from three non-governmental organizations in Indonesia to comprehend some of the mechanisms behind the unequal access to and quality of education. It suggests that the impact of and interplays between human, social, economic, political and infrastructural capital at the individual, household, school, community and government level are important on inequality in access to and quality of education in Indonesia

The achievement gap in Indonesia? Organizational and ideological differences between private Islamic schools

This study examines the effects of different types of private Islamic schools on student achievement and achievement gaps. We formulate hypotheses, drawing on an education production function approach that outlines differences in investment and resource allocation decisions across these tracks and streams. We tested our hypotheses using Indonesian data collected in 2013 on 156,952 students nested in 3,150 schools in 366 municipalities. Using multilevel regression analyses, we found that student achievement and achievement gaps vary over private Islamic school tracks and streams. Even though student achievement and achievement gaps are strongly determined by student and family characteristics, our findings suggest that differences between school tracks and streams also play an important role. Moreover, our study revealed a large variability in student achievement and achievement gaps between municipalities

The Impact of Decentralization on Educational Attainment in Indonesia

This study contributes to our knowledge on the impact of decentralization of the education sector in Indonesia. We extend existing research by examining the influence of both municipal factors and other explanatory variables on educational attainment in Indonesia. We focus on mean years of schooling as an indicator of educational attainment. We hypothesize that after decentralization 1) educational attainment is higher compared to the pre-decentralization era, 2) regional variations in educational attainment have increased and 3) the higher the fiscal capacity, degree of urbanization and development; the higher the municipality’s mean year of schooling. The latter is also expected for municipalities that have been newly created in past years. We test the hypotheses with panel data on 5,541,983 respondents aggregated to 3,880 observations nested in 491 districts/cities nested in 32 provinces for the pre and post-decentralization era. The results reveal the following. First, after decentralization, the length of schooling slightly increased but progress in the length of schooling has slowed down a bit. Second, educational attainment variation between provinces slightly decreased but the variation among municipalities increased. Third, the degree of municipalities’ development and urbanization have a significantly positive impact on improving educational attainment while the fiscal capacity and the status of being a new municipality do not have a significant effect on extending the length of schooling. Our findings suggest that especially rural areas and less developed municipalities have lagged behind in the attempt to improve Indonesia’s educational attainment

Why do children stay out of school in Indonesia?

Municipal and household-level determinants for Indonesian children out of school are studied using multilevel analysis of 221,392 children in 136,182 households in 497 municipalities. The higher the poverty rate and public education expenditure per capita, the higher the likelihood that children drop out. However, a high(er) mean of municipality education expenditure significantly reduces children’s likelihood to never attend school while a high(er) poverty rate significantly increases the likelihood that children will never attend school. At the household level, expenditure, spending on education, and head of household’s educational background have a significant effect on reducing the number of children out of school

The Impact of Decentralization on Educational Attainment in Indonesia

This study contributes to our knowledge on the impact of decentralization of the education sector in Indonesia. We extend existing research by examining the influence of both municipal factors and other explanatory variables on educational attainment in Indonesia. We focus on mean years of schooling as an indicator of educational attainment. We hypothesize that after decentralization 1) educational attainment is higher compared to the pre-decentralization era, 2) regional variations in educational attainment have increased and 3) the higher the fiscal capacity, degree of urbanization and development; the higher the municipality’s mean year of schooling. The latter is also expected for municipalities that have been newly created in past years. We test the hypotheses with panel data on 5,541,983 respondents aggregated to 3,880 observations nested in 491 districts/cities nested in 32 provinces for the pre and post-decentralization era. The results reveal the following. First, after decentralization, the length of schooling slightly increased but progress in the length of schooling has slowed down a bit. Second, educational attainment variation between provinces slightly decreased but the variation among municipalities increased. Third, the degree of municipalities’ development and urbanization have a significantly positive impact on improving educational attainment while the fiscal capacity and the status of being a new municipality do not have a significant effect on extending the length of schooling. Our findings suggest that especially rural areas and less developed municipalities have lagged behind in the attempt to improve Indonesia’s educational attainment