Who Learns What in Basic Education? Evidence from Indonesia

Abstraksi

Indonesia consistently fares poorly on the international tests like PISA and TIMSS. To help diagnosing the causes of poor learning we track student achievement across 9 years in basic education. We find that 40% of students do not learn the basics in the early grades(recognizing 2-digit numbers by the end of 2nd grade, and ordering 4-digit numbers by the end of 4th grade). We also find that schools do not cover the complete Indonesian curriculum. Only few students learn how to calculate the surface area of a triangle by the end of 5th grade and how to complete exercises embedded in stories. Incomplete coverage of the primary curriculum helps explain the low levels of student achievement observed in secondary school. We found that high-output schools were generally located in Java and that low-output schools were in non-Java. There is substantial heterogeneity in learning across Indonesia and, especially outside Java, there seems to be a major learning crisis. The differences in learning outcomes between students from different socioeconomic groups were found to be mainly a between-school phenomenon. We observed a large catching-up effect in learning in 6th grade. A plausible explanation is the increased pressure on schools, teachers and students to perform well on the high-stakes national exams. The fact that the system can produce learning once actors are sufficiently motivated, suggests that 1.) performance pressure might help, and 2.) that low levels of teacher’s knowledge and skills are potentially not a major binding constraint to learning in Indonesia.