TheQualityofEducationinIndonesia.pdfVIP

The Quality of Education in Indonesia: Weighed, Measured, and Found Wanting Daniel Suryadarma Australian National University daniel.suryadarma@anu.edu.au Presented at Forum Kajian Pembangunan Seminar Series SMERU Research Institute, Jakarta, 18 May 2011 Let’s start with a test 4 Think of a fraction that is smaller than 9 ?? How did 8th graders (kelas 2 SMP) perform? ? Singapore (top performer): 84% correct ? Korea and Japan: 81% ? Australia: 71% ? United States: 69% ? Malaysia: 43% ? South Africa: 30% ? Indonesia: 26% ? Ghana (bottom performer): 21% Source: TIMSS 8th grade test Should we be worried? ? Yes. ? Student performance in a standardised test is an indicator of school quality. ? Countries with high quality schools have higher economic growth (Hanushek Woessmann, 08). – Most of the effect go through higher skills in the labour market. – The rest probably go through social benefits, like lower crime. ? With growth comes lower poverty, higher support for democracy, and a healthier population. Outline I. The quality of education in Indonesia ? Measured using student performance in international mathematics, science, and reading assessments. II. Some challenges ? Curriculum ? Teacher absence, distribution ? Teacher qualification III. Efforts to improve education quality TIMSS 2007 ? Also conducted in 1995, 1999, 2003. ? Tests mathematics and science aptitude of 4th and 8th grade students in 50 countries and 7 states in Spain, Canada, US, UAE. ? Indonesia participated since 1999, only 8th grade. – In 2007, about 4000 students participated. ? Grading: mean 500, standard deviation 100. ? Benchmark scores: – 625 (Advanced): students can organise and draw co