DECENTRALIZATION: AN EDUCATION TUG-OF-WAR

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 SURABAYA 000107 SENSITIVE SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR EAP/MTS, PLEASE PASS TO USAID E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV SOCI EAID ECON ID SUBJECT: DECENTRALIZATION: AN EDUCATION TUG-OF-WAR REF: SURABAYA 106 SURABAYA 00000107 001.2 OF 003 This message is sensitive but unclassified. Please protect accordingly. ¶1. (SBU) Summary: Eight years after the government began pushing decision making to the local level under a policy of regional autonomy, the central government remains deeply involved in local-level education. The Constitution requires that local governments devote 20% of their annual budget to educational spending. Implementation is haphazard and exacerbated by a fundamental lack of transparency in the budget process. The central government mandates a national test that produces a de facto national curriculum standard. Education activists insist that greater funding is required to create a student-centered teaching approach, modeled after American teaching methods. USAID programs are assisting in building the capacity of local governments and schools as well as increasing the role of local stakeholders. End Summary. Creative Accounting on Educational Spending -------------- ¶2. (SBU) As outlined Reftel, regional governments have mixed records in their willingness and ability to provide services to their populations as envisioned by the policy of decentralization. Despite the significant delegation of responsibility to local governments required by the 2001 regional autonomy law, the national government maintains significant influence over local budgetary and policy priorities. For example, in 2002, the national People's Assembly amended the Indonesian Constitution to include a requirement that both the national and local governments allocate at least 20% of their budgets to education. The following year, parliament (DPR) passed a law that stipulates that this 20% not include spending on teacher salaries and administrative costs and allowances. The DPR intended instead that this spending focus on educational development. ¶3. (SBU) Many local governments in Eastern Indonesia claim to meet this 20% requirement. However, in reality local governments employ numerous strategies to create the appearance of meeting these requirements. Professor Daniel Rasyid, a senior lecturer at the Institute Technology of Surabaya and an advisor on the East Java Education Council, reports that many local governments in East Java claim to allocate the required 20% on education, while in fact they devote the majority of their education spending to teachers' salaries, administrative costs, and other allowances. Redhi Setiadi, a researcher at the Jawa Pos Institute of Pro Autonomy (JPIP),points to Sumenep regency on Madura Island in East Java province as one example of such deception. In 2008, Sumanep claimed to devote 22% of its budget to education. However, Redhi calculated that the percentage of the budget devoted to educational development was really only 8.5%. ¶4. (SBU) Some local governments will artificially inflate their educational spending by reporting it as a percentage of a subset of the total budget. According to Redhi Setiadi, for example, the Banyuwangi regency in East Java claimed to devote 21% of its budget to education spending in 2008. However, the actual education spending was not 21% of total budget, but rather 21% of what was left of the budget after deducting major expenditures for salaries and allowances. Ratna Haris, the head of the State Alumni Teachers Association of Eastern Indonesia, and Mappinawang, the former chairman of the South Sulawesi Election Commission, shared the opinion that such practices are also common in their areas. They claimed that in many cases regencies or cities "manipulate" education spending by including programs that are only tangentially related to education in the reported education budget. Using Newspapers for Public Outreach -------------- ¶5. (SBU) In hopes of creating a groundswell of public opinion to support truth in budgeting, JPIP published articles in the Jawa Pos, the largest media group in Eastern Indonesia, urging the public to remind local government officials of the constitutional education spending requirement. According to experts, however, a lack of transparency hampers the public's ability to become involved in the process. Many regencies and cities do not publicize their budgets at all, beyond press releases trumpeting specific spending achievements. Even when they do publicize their budgets, regency and city governments often avoid providing meaningful information. For example, East Java's Probolinggo regency informed the public about its budget through advertisements in local newspapers. However, these advertisements only included the budget summary, failing to show SURABAYA 00000107 002.2 OF 003 precisely what the individual portions, including education, are spent on. ¶6. (U) Some local governments are spending the required amount on education and encouraging transparency in reporting their budgets. The Surabaya City government, for example, openly announced its planned 2010 education budget through advertisements in major newspapers that included detailed budgetary information. According to its newspaper ad, the city has allocated approximately $135 million, out of at total budget of $415 million, to education spending. This amount includes approximately $51 million in teachers' salaries. The remaining $84 million devoted to education meets the 20% required by the Constitution. The advertisement claims that this is the highest budget allocation for education in Indonesia. Redhi Setiadi said that the city of Batu in East Java won the JPIP award of 2009 for education as it allocates 23% of its budget to education. Central Government + Mandated Exam = Stagnant Curriculum -------------- -------------- ¶7. (U) The central government is also involved in local level education through the centralized examination system. Enacted in 2003, the current system requires all students to take a standardized exam at three points during their education: at the end of elementary school in grade 6, at the end of junior high school in grade 9, and at the end of high school in grade 12. Students must pass each exam in order to advance to the next level of their education. The exam tests students' ability in Indonesian, English, Mathematics, and Basic Sciences. Students who fail the exam have the opportunity to retake it a few months after the initial examination date. According to Prof. Zainuddin Maliki, chairman of the East Java Education Council, approximately 95% of students pass the exam nationally. ¶8. (SBU) Local education experts said they oppose this centralized examination system for a variety of reasons. According to Prof. Rasyid, the system neglects the cultural heterogeneity of Indonesia, conducting the same examination with students from Aceh to Papua regardless of background or local conditions. This also exacerbates discrepancies in education quality. For example, a high school in Surabaya may have a good physics laboratory, but a similar school in a remote area would not have such a facility. As a result, students from areas with better-developed educational institutions will score higher on the nationwide exam and have an advantage when competing for slots in prestigious universities. He also pointed out that this system does not test students' abilities in other subjects such as writing or debate skills. Ratna Haris argues that the current system encourages teachers to focus on subjects that are included in the exam and abandon other subjects. She also said that it is not fair to judge the performance or the quality of students based only on three days of examinations. Prof. Rasyid added that the centralized system ignores the need to nurture the individual students and to create autonomous, independent, and accountable human beings. Need for Education Reform -------------- ¶9. (U) Prof. Daniel Rasyid noted that the issue of education spending is significant because the education system in Indonesia needs basic structural reform. He said that most teachers continue to practice the old system of teaching -- a one-way teaching method where teachers lecture and students listen and memorize. He expressed the opinion that the education system should change to a more "student-centered" system where students are given wider opportunity to discuss and debate the topics at hand. Prof. Zainuddin Maliki echoed this sentiment, stating that Indonesia should adopt the American education system of critical thinking in order to produce high quality students. In both professors' view, this sort of reform can only happen when local governments devote the full 20% of the budget to educational development and when the centralized examination system is altered to allow for more flexible curriculum reform. USAID Assistance -------------- ¶10. (U) USAID's Decentralized Basic Education (DBE) program works within 57 local district governments in seven provinces in three project components: district and school-based management and community participation (DBE1); teacher training (DBE2); and relevant education for youth (DBE3). DBE1 is strengthening the capacity of local government and school principals to effectively plan, manage, and deliver quality basic education services as well as strengthening the position and role of local SURABAYA 00000107 003.2 OF 003 stakeholders - parents, teachers, school committees, community organizations, and local parliaments - in planning and managing basic education. DBE2 is training teaching teachers in student-centered pedagogy and the use of teaching aides to improve students and the classroom learning environment. DBE3 is helping middle school and out-of-school youth to develop life skills - critical problem thinking and solving, self management and communication and interpersonal skills - that will better prepare them for lifelong learning, participation in community development and the world of work. Eventually, the programs are expected to reach 9,000 public and private schools; 2.5 million students; 90,000 educators; and 1 million youth through replication. Some of the major results from the five year, $133 million investments are increased capacity of local governments to plan and manage education services; increased community participation in providing education; better teaching performance as a result of in-service teacher training; better student and school performance; livelihood skills increased for in-school and out-of-school youth; and adoption of USAID materials by donors, universities, and the Ministry organizations. MCCLELLAND