DECENTRALIZATION: AN EDUCATION TUG-OF-WAR

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 SURABAYA 000107

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TAGS: PGOV SOCI EAID ECON ID
SUBJECT: DECENTRALIZATION: AN EDUCATION TUG-OF-WAR

REF: SURABAYA 106

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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

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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

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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