The Republic of Indonesia, the Dutch East Indies until its independence in 1949, is a Southeast Asian archipelago (17,500 islands, 60% of which are inhabited, with over 40% of the population living in rural areas). Southeast Asia’s largest and most populous country, Indonesia, is the fourth most populous country in the world (281.19 million in 2023), with a population extremely diverse in terms of ethnic groups (300), languages (600+) and religions. 

Right to Education

Indonesia’s emphasis on education dates to independence and by the early 21st century, the great majority of Indonesians were literate. The country’s national education system mandates compulsory education for the first six years of primary education and the first of two three-year blocks of secondary education. Tertiary education comprises dozens of public institutions and thousands of private schools. Primary schools are primarily public (93%), but private schools comprise more than half (56%) of junior secondary schools and two-thirds (67%) of senior secondary schools.

Article 3 of Indonesia’s constitution declares the right to education for citizens, as well as the government’s obligation to fund a national system of education at a minimum of 20% of the state and the regional budgets. 

Current Status of Education

The World Bank in 2014 reported on the enormity of the Indonesian school system—a quarter of a million schools, 2.6 million teachers, 50 million students—the fourth largest education system in the world, behind the United States, India and China. 

By the 2022-2023 academic year, there were 400,000 schools in Indonesia, the majority being primary schools. In 2022, total government spending on education as a share of GDP was 0.9%, and in 2023, it was less than 0.1% on primary education, placing Indonesia in the lowest few of all countries ranked. 

Nevertheless, some recent key indicators are strong: literacy rate, 96% (2020); primary school completion rate, 101.92% (2023); secondary school enrollment, 97.17% (2023); tertiary school enrollment, 45.14% (2023). Still, the average years of formal education for individuals aged 15-64 was only 9.1 years in 2020, putting it at 88 out of 153 countries ranked. 

Education Challenges . . . and Controversy

Sustainable Development Progress. The U.N.’s Sustainable Development Report classifies Indonesia’s progress on SDG 4, Quality Education, as “challenges remain.” Participation rate in pre-primary organized learning needs to increase, although trends are on track for maintaining SDG achievement for net primary enrollment rate, lower secondary completion rate and literacy rate. 

Quantity versus Quality. After independence, there was a surge in school construction, followed by a shift toward educational decentralization. Decentralization has advantages, but led to uneven capacity over the country’s 500 districts, with excellence in urban areas as compared to the remote districts. One observer has suggested a multi-pronged approach to refocus funding, professionalize teaching, update and modernize assessments. 

Education versus Free Meals. In February 2026, the Indonesian government moved nearly a third of the education budget to the Free Nutritious Meals program, affecting the pay of civil servants and honorary (temporary) teachers. Critics noted that those funds had been targeted for education and should be used for student scholarships and salaries of both contract and honorary teachers, already subject to late and low salary payments. 

In March, a coalition of teachers and civil society groups, along with the Save Indonesian Education Coalition, filed a judicial review of the allocation (over $19 billion) to the free meals program taken from the education budget. It was estimated that this would reduce the allocation to the education sector by two-thirds, with student scholarships to receive only a little over $3 billion and teachers receiving $5.5 billion. The evidence from global programs is clear, it is argued: school feeding improves attendance and can boost nutrition, but it is not a substitute for foundational teaching, teacher training and curricular clarity. 

Meeting the Challenges?

RISE, the Research on Improving Systems of Education Programme, a “global research endeavor” determined that Indonesian students were not gaining basic, foundational skills—over 60% of high school graduates with third grade or lower mathematics competence. This was due in part to half of its teachers being unable to pass a teaching competence test. The RISE country research team worked to address these issues by engaging the communities and providing incentives for instructional time and accountability, 2019-2023. 

The Republic of Indonesia will celebrate 100 years of independence in 2045, and Indonesia’s Golden Vision 2045, published in 2020, set out the country’s aims for the next few decades. The Golden Vision acknowledged the country’s low learning outcomes compared to peers and called for “deliberate actions” to address this. Actions include increasing funding overall, increasing access to early childhood education, improving secondary education attendance and increasing accountability and service delivery of teachers.

One specific target of the Golden Vision is the development of digital talent so that the work force keeps pace with evolving technology and the growing demand for digital skills, which is now a focus of education and training programs. Indonesia’s commitment to the Golden Vision over the next two decades may determine its success in meeting the current educational challenges.

– Staff Reports 
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