Private sector education in Indonesia

Indonesia has embarked on a national decentralisation programme of government and social services. State policy commits to joint educational provision - both state and private. The private sector is the predominant provider at secondary level - particularly to the disadvantaged sections of the community. Attention to the private sector is essential if the government is to address issues of equity, achieve universal basic education and meet the growing demand for secondary schooling.

Apaper from the British Council examines the impact of decentralisation onprivate education in Indonesia and stresses the need toregard private sector provision as complementary to – and not in competitionwith – state-provided education.

Poor students are oftenserved by private education. Poor parents would prefer their children to attendgovernment schools but entry to them is often restricted. Unequal access(particularly in rural areas), academic selection policies and economics allcontribute to limit state schooling opportunities for disadvantaged families.This often results in a harsh choice: either private school or no school.

Privateschools are typically less than half the size of government schools. The smallsize of private junior secondary schools constrains their ability to exploitcost advantages and deliver quality education. The most promising areas forprivate schools are in urban areas – however this is where the greatestpolitical pressure for state school expansion is being felt. Urban state schoolexpansion can cause students to migrate between sectors while doing nothing toalleviate the most pressing access and quality issues - particularly in ruralareas.

Theauthor describes major problems faced by private schools:

• Small size: vulnerable relationship between enrolment, fees andsustainability
• Reliance on part-time teachers impacts on teaching quality and studentrelationships
• Governmentfinancial support to private schools is not well targeted and seldom needsbased

The government’s policy intentionthat the private sector should be a partner in educational provision isrational in the Indonesian context. However the government now needs to nurturethis partnership. Without improvements in private school quality, negativeparental perceptions and inter-sectoral competition will see the demise of theprivate sector. Under such circumstances the government would be financiallystretched to maintain existing levels of enrolment and provision let alone expandupon these.

Theauthor offers the following for consideration:

• improve understanding of how private schools operate and how theyinteract with government schools
• develop a needs-sensitive financing system that addresses inequalities
• assist private schools with recurrent costs - specificallyconsider private school placements for government teachers.
• prioritise state school expansion in rural areas which are less conduciveto private school operations

Inconclusion the researchers stress that to achieve any of the above theeducation management system, weakened by the process of decentralisation mustbe re-built. Without better data it willbe impossible to identify those schools, private or otherwise, withdeficiencies, and to prioritise and distribute resources accordingly.