Local Capacity of Two Performing Districts in Indonesia: A Reflection from the Implementation of Decentralised Education

Abstraksi

Background and Context We believe that education is a pivotal aspect to improve the quality of a nation’s human capital. This study departs from previous studies that often highlight the stagnation of educational reform in the era of Indonesian regional autonomy, although a huge national budget has been allocated to education for more than two decades. Moving from the problems, we ought to learn from several districts in the country that have designed and implemented promising educational reform practices. Despite the overall gloomy picture of decentralised education in Indonesia, we have identified several regions which perform otherwise. Accordingly, this study would like to understand what factors have contributed to the great and consistent performance of two outstanding districts in Indonesia: The Cities of Yogyakarta and Bukittinggi. We hope that this study would give exhaustive depiction of those high-achieving districts in creating and delivering better educational services. Hence, it will inspire other districts to improve their educational practices, and ultimately Indonesia’s quality of education. This paper reports findings from the initial exploration of a two-year longitudinal study. We employ ethnographic approach to gain better understanding of the great and persistent educational profile in both study areas. It is considered as a holistic approach which enables us to conceive the different cultural contexts of Javanese in Yogyakarta and Minangkabau in Bukittinggi. These ethnics are hooked with a reverse type of social systems where Javanese is associated with patriarchy, while Minangkabau has matriarchal way of life. Moreover, ethnography is also able to explain the broader system as it attributes to the surrounding milieu including social, political, and economic aspects of these dissimilar districts. Result Both Yogyakarta and Bukittinggi have showed a rapid increase in learning outcomes over the past five years. In 2017, the average National Examination (UN) scores of junior secondary school (JSS) students as well as the latest teacher competency test (UKG) in both cities were also higher than the national average scores. Our initial findings indicate that these local governments have great commitments to maintain the quality of education in their regions. These big commitments have been demonstrated through various education policies. In Yogyakarta, there is a programme called KBS Online (Students Learning Consultation) in which students can ask questions related to their school subjects to teachers (tutors) appointed by the Education Agency. After several modifications, KBS Online, which has been running since 2007, is now available in an online platform as well as in person at the Education Agency office. Moreover, the government of Yogyakarta also promotes a programme called Community Learning Hours (JBM), which was initiated by a former educator named Wasis Siswanto since the 1980s. Initially, the programme invited communities to spare two hours after maghrib prayer to oversee school-age children study at home. During those hours, parents should turn off their television and accompany their children to study. This movement gained support from the Sultan (governor of Yogyakarta) in 1999 who issued a decree Number 93/1999 concerning JBM. To reinforce the implementation of JBM, mayor of Yogyakarta issued a regulation Number 53/2014. At the end of 2017, the local government has distributed stimulant funding for each neighbourhood to implement this programme and provided a small budget for volunteers to oversee and evaluate its implementation in each kelurahan (village-level administrative area located in an urban centre). Similarly, Bukittinggi also has several innovations in order to maintain its quality of education, such as Sekolah Keluarga (Family Education). It is a 16-week in-class programme which focuses on educating parents about the basic functions of a family. The programme includes parenting sessions aiming to improve parents’ capacity in educating their children. This innovation, which also takes place at kelurahan, was launched in early 2018. Last year, it has graduated eighty-four persons from three kelurahan. It was a non-budget-programme because the speakers were invited from different local government offices. In response to that success, the government of Bukittinggi then allocated IDR 260,000,000 in 2019 to spread the implementation of this programme in 12 kelurahan. Discussion Based on the above explanations, we can see the huge commitment of local governments toward education, which has been influenced by historical and cultural contexts in the two cities. Thanks to historical background and the national figures in the past, these districts have been familiar and exposed with a high standard of education which constructs an achieving or ‘needs of achievement’ culture that is always gained with integrity. All informants in both districts conveyed that there is no corruption practices in education sector especially in teacher recruitment, which is commonly found in many other regions in Indonesia. In addition, our informants mentioned about local proverb in Minangkabau which denotes a positive competition among community members, which arguably influence the people to set a high standard in everyday life practices including education. Apart from the historical and cultural contexts, we found a resembling pattern that is the two districts have local capacity which has been recognised as a significant factor in educational reform. The local capacity consists of human, social, and physical capital. In this presentation, we argue that such capacity has contributed to various innovations which have been triggered by educational agency leadership and high quality of human capital. This implies to the high quality of the educators in teaching the students, which becomes one of key successes in maintaining the quality of education. Meanwhile, the social capital has constructed a great synergy between institutions to ease those efforts. In addition to that, both districts are also surrounded by a relatively good education infrastructure as the physical capital. Therefore, findings suggest that if a local government would like to replicate the initiatives, they need to consider the local context in terms of people engagement to ensure the programme’s sustainability. However, they are possible to be replicated if the local government can hold their commitment, integrity, and stimulate the development of local capacity to create innovations in improving the quality of education in Indonesia.