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Indonesia faces serious problems in the number, cost, quality and distribution of teachers. In recent years, its central government has introduced a range of reforms to address these problems but they have produced modest results. This paper suggests that this outcome reflects the way in which predatory political and bureaucratic elites have used the school system for decades to accumulate resources, distribute patronage, mobilize political support, and exercise political control rather than promote improved learning outcomes. Efforts to reduce teacher numbers, enhance teacher quality, and improve teacher distribution have accordingly constituted an assault on the interests of these elites, provoking powerful, if often subterranean, resistance. Broadly, reform has only occurred where the central government has employed policy instruments that have disciplined local governments and maintained a commitment to these instruments in the face of resistance. The paper concludes by assessing the implications for Indonesian education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines educational development in East Timor. It is particularly concerned with the period between October 1999 and May 2002 when the country was governed by the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET). The paper argues that UNTAET missed an important opportunity to implement the transformation in education that was called for by Timorese leaders. This was in part due to the extensive damage to East Timor’s education system as a result of Indonesia’s violent withdrawal in 1999. It was also due to the UNTAET period being the latest phase of a long history of external actors seeking to govern East Timor. As another (albeit far more benign) external actor, UNTAET’s efforts in the educational sector lacked legitimacy and thus popular acceptance from the people of East Timor. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

For many years, education researchers have grouped students into categories based on their skills and abilities. This research can help teachers and curriculum developers to understand the transition through the overlapping stages of reading acquisition, and can provide opportunities for appropriate instruction and targeted interventions for students who are struggling with certain aspects of reading acquisition. Using Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) data on a nationally representative sample of second grade students in Indonesia, we have developed a new approach for categorizing students into learning profiles, which are directly tied to their particular instructional needs. We divided students into five learning profiles based on their reading ability (Grade 3 Ready, Fluent, Instructional, Beginner, and Nonreader) and then examined the relationship among these profiles and their reading skills on a variety of EGRA subtasks in order to determine the instructional need required to promote students from one profile to the next. Although the exact cuts points will differ by orthography, the framework laid out in this paper is tied directly to two EGRA subtasks in order for it to be easily adjusted for use regardless of the language or country. Accordingly, this approach significantly increases the value of EGRA results in terms of their practical implications and can be used to provide clear guidance to researchers, ministry officials, aid organizations and policy makers aiming to address educational shortcomings and improve student performance across countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proponents of decentralization argue that bringing decisions closer to the people improves school quality and efficiency by ensuring that schools are more responsive to local educational needs. In practice, the effects of decentralization vary substantially, given that the implementation of these reforms relies on local resources and management capacity. In this paper, I estimate the effects of decentralization on educational outcomes in Indonesia using a difference-in-differences model. I find no overall effect on achievement, but a negative effect on teacher effort, particularly in rural areas and among schools with inactive school committees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyses the context in which education in Aceh acts strategically to advance an agenda of social transformation. Applying a cultural, political economy analytical framework, it identifies ways in which education is embedded in key cultural, political, economic and social struggles at present. They include: (1) the redistribution of educational opportunities and access; (2) ambiguous spaces for democratic representation in a decentralised educational structure; (3) competing notions of how diversity is acknowledged within Indonesia and Aceh Province; and (4) conflicted approaches to reconstruction following the 2004 tsunami and end of conflict in 2005. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]