Education Problems in Indonesia
The core problems we discussed are:
- Rural-Urban Inequality: A massive gap in education quality exists between city and village schools. Rural schools suffer from poor infrastructure, lack of resources (libraries, labs, internet), and lower-quality teaching.
- Flawed Zoning Policy: The school zoning policy, which prioritizes students living nearby, traps bright students in under-resourced rural schools. It limits their access to better urban public schools, while wealthy families bypass it entirely by using private schools.
- Teacher Crisis: Teachers in rural areas are severely underpaid (many are contract workers earning very little), forcing them to take second jobs. This leads to high absenteeism and a lack of focus on teaching. Good teachers do not want to work in these conditions.
- Ineffective Aid: Government programs like BOS (School Operational Assistance) are often insufficient. The funds are spread thin, mostly covering basic operational costs like books and auxiliary teacher pay, but are not enough for meaningful improvement or to provide a living wage.
- Administrative Burden: Teachers are constantly burdened with learning new national curricula and excessive paperwork. This shifts their role from educators to administrators, draining time and energy that should be spent teaching.
