This report provides guidance on how Indonesia can consolidate gains in access to basic education and develop an education system that will support an economy in transition towards high-income status.

In Indonesia, as elsewhere in Asia, education will inevitably play a key role in the national development experience as the twenty-first century unfolds. Not much international attention is paid to how the education sector is faring in Indonesia, but that is not because nothing is happening. The past decade has seen major changes in the structure of the education system and in the schooling trajectories of Indonesian children and adolescents. The administration of primary and secondary education has been decentralized to the regions. A new paradigm of school-based management has been introduced. Public spending on education has finally reached one-fifth of total government spending, as required by law. But although enrolment rates at all levels continue to increase, the quality of education remains low and has not improved, and the tertiary sector continues to experience problems of autonomy and unsatisfactory performance.

The book features an analysis of teacher reform in Indonesia, which entailed a doubling of teacher salaries upon certification. It describes the political economy context in which the reform was developed and implemented, and analyzes the impact of the reform on teacher knowledge, skills, and student outcomes.

Indonesian Education: Teachers, Schools, and Central Authority, the first published study of life inside Indonesian schools, explores the role that classroom teachers' behavior and locates their actions within the broader cultures of education and government in Indonesia.

Since the early 2000s, Indonesia has taken a number of steps to prioritize early childhood development - ranging from the inclusion of Early Childhood Development (ECD) in the National Education System Law No. 20 in 2003 to a Presidential Declaration on Holistic and Integrated ECD and the launch of the country's first ever ECD Census in 2011. These policy milestones have occurred in parallel with sustained progress on outcomes included in the Millennium Development Goals, including for child malnutrition, child mortality and universal basic education. Additional progress could be achieved by strengthening ECD policies further. This report presents findings from an assessment of ECD policies and programs in Indonesia based on two World Bank tools: the ECD module of the Systems Approach for Better Education Results (SABER) and a guide on essential interventions for investing in young children. Results from the application of both tools to Indonesia are used to suggest a number of policy options for consideration.

Schooling in the ASEAN Region evaluates primary and secondary education in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. The book describes the type of present-day schooling in these countries and, to some extent, their cooperative efforts to pursue common goals. The text discusses the aims of schooling; the structure and process of schooling; and the cooperative education ventures present in the ASEAN region. The book describes the social conditions and government efforts toward developing education in each of the five countries. The text summarizes the historical background of the country as it relates to education, the quality and supply of teachers, the curriculum, administrative structure of the educational system, and some data on school enrollment. The book also notes the problems that are present in the educational system of each country, and the existence of non-formal education in some countries. The book then addresses the education trend and future of education. The last chapter then evaluates the performance and achievements of these five countries toward reaching the goals they had set. The book also lists the challenges that these countries face in the future, such as expanding educational needs, improved quality of learning, effective educational structure, administrative efficiency, teacher supply, and better intercountry cooperation. The text can prove informative for historians, educators, school administrators, government policymakers in education, and education students and professors.

Each volume developed under the direction of Andreas Schleicher, Yuri Belfali and others.