Kilas Pendidikan Issue 17: Inequality in Education Quality and Access in Indonesia(A Portrait Based on the 2015 PISA Survey)

Since 2017, the Ministry of Education and Culture (Kementerian Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan/Kemendikbud) of the Republic of Indonesia has introduced a zoning system policy within the New Student Admission (Penerimaan Peserta Didik Baru/PPDB) framework. This policy was further refined in 2018 through Ministerial Regulation No. 14 of 2018, which replaced Ministerial Regulation No. 17 of 2017 on PPDB. Why zoning? The primary rationale put forward by the government was the need to undertake comprehensive school reform in order to promote more equitable access to, and quality of, education services.

This edition of Kilas Pendidikan presents the results of an empirical study that contributes to ongoing discussions on the urgency of the zoning policy, as well as other policies oriented toward equality of educational opportunity. The study is guided by two overarching questions. The first relates to education quality:
How large are the quality gaps between schools in Indonesia?

Beyond public perceptions of “elite” and “non-elite” schools, rigorous scientific evidence on the extent of educational quality disparities in Indonesia remains limited. This study provides national-level quantitative estimates of school quality gaps at the junior secondary (SMP) and senior secondary (SMA) levels. If evidence confirms the existence of quality inequality, then issues of access become critically important. Therefore, the second question addressed in this study is:
Who or students from which socio-economic backgrounds are enrolled in higher quality schools?

The full study can be downloaded in Kilas Pendidikan Issue 17, Educational Quality and Access Inequality in Indonesia, here.