Improving education quality in Indonesia is no easy task

Improving education quality in Indonesia is no easy task – in September, Indonesia’s Ministry for Research, Technology and Higher Education suspended Jakarta State University (UNJ) rector Professor Djaali after a ministry-sponsored review found evidence of academic misconduct and mismanagement at the university.

Improving education quality in Indonesia
is no easy task

UNJ is one of the country’s most prominent teacher training colleges and according to official records has more than 17,000 students.

Among the irregularities identified by the review were manipulation of administrative records, excessive concentration of doctoral supervision responsibilities in the hands of individual supervisors, and widespread plagiarism.

The evidence of plagiarism raised questions about the university’s awarding of numerous doctorates, including one to Wiranto, former presidential candidate and current Coordinating Minister for Politics, Law and Security. Wiranto, who was supervised by Djaali, graduated cum laude from UNJ with a doctorate in human resources management in 2013.

This case illustrates much of what is wrong with Indonesia’s education system – Over the past few decades, the country has done much to improve access to education, particularly at the primary and junior secondary level. Today, https://www.leanbento.com/ Indonesian children are starting school earlier and staying in education longer than they ever have before.

But Indonesia has made much less progress in improving the quality of education.

The country regularly ranks towards the bottom of international standardised tests of student achievement – such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), and Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) – lower than neighbouring countries including Vietnam, Malaysia, and Thailand.

Few Indonesian universities make the world’s top 500 in league tables, such as the QS, Times Higher Education, and Academic Ranking of World Universities, reflecting poor academic standards and a low volume and quality of scholarly research.

Indonesia’s biggest challenge regarding education is no longer improving access but improving quality. The Indonesian Government hopes to develop a ‘world-class’ education system by 2025. However, numerous assessments of the country’s education performance suggest that it has a long way to go before it will achieve that goal. Many Indonesian teachers and lecturers lack the required subject knowledge and pedagogical skills to be effective educators; learning outcomes for students are poor; and there is a disparity between the skills of graduates and the needs of employers.

This Analysis explores the reasons behind these problems and the implications for Australian education providers. It argues that Indonesia’s poor education performance has not simply been a matter of low public spending on education, human resource deficits, perverse incentive structures, and poor management. It has, at its root, been a matter of politics and power. Change in the quality of Indonesia’s education system thus depends on a shift in the balance of power between competing coalitions that have a stake in the nature of education policy and its implementation. This barrier to improved educational performance is likely to limit the scope for Australian education providers to develop closer research linkages with Indonesian universities, offer Australian students more in-country study options in Indonesia, recruit greater numbers of Indonesian students, and establish branch campuses in Indonesia.