With more than 50M students in more than 250,000 schools, Indonesia has the third largest education system in Asia, and fourth largest in the world. Children must be in formal education between the ages of seven and 15, in either state-run or private schools.
For many Indonesian families, especially poorer ones in isolated rural areas without access to quality, state-run education, private schools are the only option. Historically, these schools have received little funding from the government, so they are often short-staffed, ill-equipped and unable to keep up with their state-run counterparts in terms of the quality of teaching.
In October 1995, the Asian Development Bank set out to redress this imbalance through a six-year project to improve the quality and sustainability of private schools, ensuring disadvantaged children, particularly girls, would have access to junior secondary education.
We won a competitive tender to implement this project, which targeted 990 schools in 11 rural districts of East Java, Lampung, South Kalimantan, South Sulawesi and West Java. Alongside our partners, we built new classrooms and refurbished libraries and laboratories. We also delivered teacher training, distributed textbooks and provided children from low-income families with stipends and scholarships.
Overcoming adversity
The project was delivered during a turbulent time in Indonesia’s history. The Asian financial crisis, coupled with ongoing efforts to decentralise all sectors, caused socio-economic uncertainty and susceptibility to rapid change. At the same time, school enrolment rates were dropping fast – between 1996 and 2001, private junior secondary schools lost 20% of their students.
Our team was instrumental in ensuring the project went beyond its initial targets despite these challenges. Our four international experts and seven national consultants worked closely with the Government of Indonesia, not-for-profit foundations and school staff.
The project provided training to 6427 teachers, so private schools no longer had to rely on part-time, overworked and underpaid teachers.
It was the first time a training programme on this scale took place in Indonesia. It was so successful that supplying contracted teachers became a key component of the Ministry of Education and Culture’s support system for schools. Almost 900 school libraries and nearly 700 science laboratories were refurbished, while 12 local education centres were established for teacher training.
As a result of our collective efforts, children from disadvantaged backgrounds have been able to complete their junior secondary education, an opportunity they would not otherwise have had. National examination scores have increased, and enrolment rates stabilised.
The project was a first for Indonesia, paving the way for more private schools to receive more funding from the government.