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Education in Indonesia: Trends, Differentials, and Implications for Development

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Contemporary Demographic Transformations in China, India and Indonesia

Part of the book series: Demographic Transformation and Socio-Economic Development ((DTSD,volume 5))

Abstract

This chapter focuses on trends in educational attainment in Indonesia over the past two decades, with a particular emphasis on regional and socio-economic differentials. The different possible sources of data for such analysis are first discussed, and trends in educational enrollment and educational attainment then briefly outlined, and triangulated across different sources. Available data on quality of education are then assessed in international comparative perspective. The main focus of the chapter is on differentials in educational attainment by region, gender and socio-economic background, utilizing data from the socioeconomic surveys (SUSENAS) and the 2010 Population Census. Educational attainment and literacy measures at the district level are regressed on indicators of per capita GDP and of poverty incidence. The transmission of socio-economic status across generations is studied using 2010 Census data by linking age-specific enrolment rates of children with the educational level of the household head.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Suharti (2013) reported that the proportion of underage students enrolled in the first year of primary school is around 47 %.

  2. 2.

    For useful comparative analysis of DHS data from many countries, including Indonesia, for this purpose, see Filmer and Pritchett (1999) and Filmer (2005).

  3. 3.

    We did not include those below age 25 in the analysis, because many of them would not yet have completed their education.

  4. 4.

    Using the SUSENAS, the average years of schooling for population aged 15 years or over in Indonesia in 2010 is 7.9 (Suharti 2013).

  5. 5.

    In Jakarta, the average years of schooling is very close to the highest value due to the big disparity between Kepulauan Seribu district, small islands, small population with low educational attainment and the other districts in the mainland Jakarta with more educated population.

  6. 6.

    This poverty measure is published by Badan Pusat Statistik (2011) based on SUSENAS 2010 on the average per capita expenditure of basic needs at each districts.

  7. 7.

    The 1-year lagged value of the log of real per capita Gross Regional Domestic Product (GRDP) is used considering the lagged response of the GRDP on educational performances. This lagged value also reduces the potential endogeneity bias from the causal effect between GRDP and education.

  8. 8.

    This section uses the age-specific enrollment rather than GER or NER as the 2010 Population Census does not provide a GER or NER for Senior Secondary School and Tertiary because the timing of census data collection was during the transition time of students from senior secondary level to tertiary level.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Demography, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

    Gavin W. Jones

  2. Faculty of Economics, Brawijaya University, Malang, Indonesia

    Devanto Pratomo

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  1. Gavin W. Jones
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  2. Devanto Pratomo
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Correspondence to Gavin W. Jones .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institut de Recherche pour le Développem, Paris, France

    Christophe Z. Guilmoto

  2. School of Demography, Australian National University, Canberra, West Australia, Australia

    Gavin W. Jones

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Jones, G.W., Pratomo, D. (2016). Education in Indonesia: Trends, Differentials, and Implications for Development. In: Guilmoto, C., Jones, G. (eds) Contemporary Demographic Transformations in China, India and Indonesia. Demographic Transformation and Socio-Economic Development, vol 5. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24783-0_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24783-0_12

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

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