Doctoral thesis of philosophy improving educational planning for junior secondary education in the indonesian decentralization era (the portfolio)

IMPROVING EDUCATIONAL PLANNING FOR JUNIOR SECONDARY EDUCATION IN THE INDONESIAN DECENTRALIZATION ERA The Portfolio (2) Didik Suhardi School of Management: College of Business RMIT University May, 2010 i Research By Project There are three components that are being presented for examination for this Doctor of Philosophy - By Project Degree An exegesis A Portfolio that contains the durable record of the project An oral presentation This volume contains the Portfolio The Portfolio is divided into two parts: Exhibits There are 14 Exhibits They are either working documents that influenced the project or provide an insight into the actions that I took during the project Products There are two types of products The first ‘Working Products’ are being used in the Ministry of National Education The Second, ‘Academic Products’ are aimed at the academic and professional communities Accompanying this volume is the Exegesis ii Table of contents Exhibits Exhibit : Ethics approval from RMIT Exhibit : Meeting agenda, 19 November 2004 Exhibit : Consultation meeting with policy makers and Staff from PEOs Exhibit : Questionnaire Exhibit : Summary of coordination meeting, February 2006 50 Exhibit : Format for gaining data for BOS program 54 Exhibit : Mechanism for selection and construction of new school buildings, new classrooms and One Roof Schools 56 Exhibit : Access and quality activities implemented at the provincial level, by the end of June 2007 for Junior Secondary Education in 33 Provinces 62 Exhibit : Photographs related to my job while i worked on this research by project 64 Exhibit 10 : Minute of meetings for the development of planning guideline 72 Exhibit 11 : Minute of meetings for the development of monitoring and evaluation system 76 Exhibit 12 : Director general decree related to the acceleration task force of nine year basic education program 82 Exhibit 13 : This picture related to my presentation in the second review of my project (Jakarta, 2008) 91 Exhibit 14 : Publications related to the project 93 iii Products: Working Product : Product : Planning Guidelines for the Directorate DDJSE, PEOs and DEOs (Rencana Pengembangan Pendidikan di Direktorat Pembinaan SMP, dan Kabupaten/Kota) Product : 97 Development of Monitoring and Evaluation System (SIMONEV) for Completion of Nine Year Basic Education (Desain Pengembangan Sistem Monitoring dan Evaluasi (SIMONEV) Penuntasan Wajib Belajar Pendidikan Dasar Sembilan Tahun ) 103 Academic Product : Product : Paper on Decentralization: Implementation in the Indonesian Context and some Relevant Literature 104 Product : Presentation on Initial Conclusions of my research to the International Agencies (World Bank, AusAID, and UNESCO) 133 Product : Paper for APEID conference: improving planning, and community participation in the indonesian decentralized education system, December 2006 142 Product : Presentation at the UNICEF conference educational for sustainable development, Bangkok, December 2006 154 iv Exhibit : Ethics Approval from RMIT HRESC HF:HP Building 220.2.36 Bundoora West Campus HRESC-B 542-09/04 Mr Didik Suhardi 3096433 Islamic Village, Blok BI / 20 Curug, Tangerang, Banten Re: Human Research Ethics Application The Design and Social Context Human Research Ethics SubCommittee, at its meeting 11th November 2004, considered your Doctor of Philosophy application entitled “Improving Education Planning for Junior Secondary Education in the Indonesian Decentralization Era” I write to advise that your application will receive approval as Risk category, Level 2/MR classification subject to Higher Degree Proposal approval and the following minor amendments being sighted to the satisfaction of the Chair: CONSENT FORM Complete the top section of Form 2b Complete point (e) Clarify you really need the Test Consent form? PLAIN LANGUAGE STATEMENT (PLS) i) Use RMIT letterhead ii) Introduce yourself first iii) State School and Portfolio you are studying in after the sentence “This study is being undertaken as part of a ……….Degree” iv) State the title of your project v) Add a paragraph or two about the project vi) Invite the participants to become involved vii) State exactly what is expected of the participants viii) Add sentence you may withdraw at any time and any unprocessed data may also be withdrawn ix) ADD For further information Contact me at ….or my advisor Professor Slamaet on …… x) Sign the Plain Language Statement xi) Add the HREC ethics contact details box at the bottom of the page You are required to complete the above amendments and submit them to the secretary of the DCS Human Research Ethics Sub-committee prior to the next meeting The next meeting will be held on 2/12/2004 Should you have any queries regarding the above amendments please seek advice from the Chair of the sub-committee Assoc Prof Heather Fehring on 9925 7840, heather.fehring@rmit.edu.au or contact me on (03) 9925 7877 or email heather.porter@rmit.edu.au I wish you well in your research Yours sincerely Heather Porter Heather Porter Secretary Design and Social Context Human Research Ethics Sub-Committee Operational Unit - Bundoora Exhibit : Meeting Agenda The meeting discussed problems and issues arising from the implementation of decentralization in education It is related to my exegesis that discusses improving educational planning for junior secondary education in the Indonesian decentralization era Exhibit : Meeting Agenda The purpose of the meeting: a.Discussion of current issues on the Implementation of Decentralization of Education b Identification of the most significant issues on Education Management c.Collecting input and review from senior staff to develop strategies for overcoming problems associated with the implementation of a decentralized education system Attendants : This meeting was attended by all deputy directors of DDJSE; deputy director program & planning, deputy director institution development, deputy director student activities and deputy director teaching & learning, all eight heads of section, six consultants and staff members from four sub directorate In total there were 26 persons involved in the meeting Venue : The meeting was held in the meeting room of DDJSE, Building E, Floor 15th Senayan, Jakarta Time : 19 November 2004 EXHIBIT : Consultation meeting with policy makers and staff from PEOs The meeting discussed current issues and problems from 33 provinces on the implementation of decentralization in education This meeting provided preliminary insight into the concerns of education managers in the MONE This allowed me to uncover key themes and concerns about the decentralization of Indonesian education Exhibit : Consultation meeting with policy makers and staff from PEOs The purpose of the meeting : a.Explore the current issues of implementing of Education Planning in the Context of Decentralization b Identify the most useful Educational Planning Process Attendants: This meeting was attended by all deputy directors, all heads of section, consultants, senior staffs, provincial education offices from 33 provinces and deputy heads Venue: Sahid Jaya Hotel, Jakarta Selatan Time: 9-10 December 2004 Table 1: Summary of Respondents’ Perceptions about the Degree of Importance of Planning Dimensions No Dimensions of Planning Planning Design Education Management Information System (EMIS) Planning Guidelines Planning Coordination Enforcement of Planning Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Professional Planners Respondent Perceptions about the Degree of Importance of Planning Dimensions Central Province District Very important Very important Very important Very important Important Important Important Very important Very important Important Very Important Important Important Important Important Very important Very important Important Very important Important Very Important From Table 1, it can be concluded that planning dimensions are considered as important to very important by respondents Very important means that certain planning dimensions are very needed, while important means that certain planning dimensions are needed a Planning Design The first step in the planning design is to define the scope and quality of good planning The scope of planning design consists of equity, quality and relevancy, and governance of education The quality of planning can be justified by planning criteria Equity, reflecting the fairness of distribution of educational resources, opportunities and/or outcomes across relevant categories such as province, district, income class, social class, ethnic group, sex, minority, etc Quality or improvement is the educational value that is added by the education system, i.e gains in achievement as a result of education process or put in another way of getting acquisition of knowledge, skill, and dispositions Relevancy, reflecting the extent to which education system contributes to the national development process Governance of education is an arrangement of formal and informal power in education It is hoped that formal power will be implemented consistently Therefore, all programs must be undertaken according to the principles of good governance, including: participation, transparency, accountability, law enforcement, professional, predictability, democracy Good governance is built in the design plan Quality of planning is justified by planning criteria developed by researcher together with research subjects At least 14 criteria for good education planning were identified including: context analysis, profile of current education situation, future ideal education situation, gap analysis, policy and program development to reduce the gaps, demand driven, feasibility of implementation strategy, feasibility of monitoring and evaluation, adequacy-updated-data relevance, feasibility of budget (education plan, financial plan, and financial resources), levels of participation and inclusiveness of stakeholders in education, sustainability (human resources, funding, etc.), system (procedure, mechanism of developing a plan), link and match between planning levels, and completeness of planning elements 150 b Education Management Information System (EMIS) Education planning should be based on accurate, updated, complete, and relevant data For this to happen, the second step of planning is to develop EMIS in order to get the needed data In this step, we must first make all stakeholders aware of the importance of EMIS for education planning, developing software and hardware, training human resources, and making sure the financial supports are available from both national and local offices c Planning Guidelines for Junior Secondary Education To make sure that planning design is to be implemented with a high degree of consistency it is important in this step to develop implementation guidelines for each program This will include: the important issues of equity, quality, and governance of education Each guideline consists of objective for each program to be achieved, activities, inputs, how to it, etc including action plans The implementation guidelines are developed together between researcher and research subjects, both at the central and local government levels d Planning Coordination To get system wide coordination and consistency, and to avoid unnecessary duplication and conflicts of plans between central and local education plans, it is important to have coordination between central and local education plans through meetings, consultations, trainings, and other mechanisms as deemed relevant to both national and local education offices This step is very important in the planning process as decentralization of education in Indonesia tends to produce “loose coupling” between central and local education offices Coordination is done interactively between central and local education offices Basically, the role of researcher is as facilitator in the coordination and the decisions is based on mutually acceptable decisions agreed during coordination meetings e Enforcement of Planning Implementation Good planning is only one part of quality assurance The ultimate results still depend on conformity of implementation to planning design For this reason, it is important to conduct monitoring, supervision, and control during implementation Our research found that, decentralized education has caused ‘loose-coupling’ connections between central and local education systems Therefore, it is important to enforce conformance of implementation to planning design by providing appropriate incentives f Monitoring and Evaluation Monitoring should be done to provide early warnings of emerging problems Evaluation must be done to see whether the real outputs are congruent with the expected outputs Both monitoring and evaluation are important to make sure and control the effectiveness and efficiency of the programs It was found that both national and local education offices agreed on tight monitoring and evaluation undertaken collaboratively in accordance with existing regulations e.g Government Regulation on Divisions of Labor (tasks and functions) between central and local education offices (Note: at the present time, the regulation is in the process of being finalized.) 151 g Professional Planners Good planning also depends on good planners For this to happen, it was agreed by researcher and research subjects to develop good planners through capacity building including: formal education, training, workshops, focus group discussions and other means as deemed appropriate It was also agreed that both national and local education offices develop the capacity of professional education planners through shared funding Service Quality Delivery Based on documentary analysis, meeting observations, questionnaires and intensive interviews with school principals, school committee, education boards, and district education office staff, the following preliminary research findings are presented As noted, soon after the Law 22/1999 on Regional Government was enacted, other government regulations derived from this law were also enacted including Government regulation 25/2000 on Regional Government Authorities and Ministerial Decree 129a/U/2004 on Minimum Service Standard Unlike law 22/1999 that covers more general aspects of regional government, government regulation 25/2000 details how authority is distributed across government levels To ensure that regional and district levels government carry out their obligatory functions as stated on government regulation 25/2000, each sectoral ministry should provide MSS (minimum service standards) for what is expected to be achieved by each regional government level; Without such standards, there is no evaluation on how those decisions handed down to provinces and districts really affect regional government service quality In the education sector this minimum service standard is regulated by National Education Ministerial Decree 129a/U/2004 The Education Minimum Service Standard is a set of indicators on formal, non formal, Youth, and Sport Education to be achieved by all district education offices as a consequence of their new obligatory functions after decentralization was enacted Even though the education MSS have been enacted for many years, effective implementation is quite limited The Ministerial decree is not listed in the hierarchy of government regulations which local government usually refers in formulating policies, consequently most local government institutions overlook the importance of measuring their service measurement using MSS On the other hand, there was a limited understanding of the importance of MSS and a range of interpretations exist both within and across levels of government This situation raises questions on not only how service quality measurement in district education offices should be formulated, and implemented, but also what factors influence efforts to improve it This is why evaluating and measuring service delivery is critically important The purpose of measuring the quality of service is to see if the quality is better or worse than it was, or is better or worse compared to another service providers These service quality indicators should not only be measured by audits from within the internal organization of district offices, but should also be measured by external customers including schools, principals, teachers, parents and other community members Based on questionnaires distributed to 140 respondents consisting of school principals and teachers in the workshops held in the Department of National Education, 30 % participants 152 perceived that the service quality delivery was relatively good, 40 % fair, and the rest of 30% are unsatisfactory or even worse as compared to the centralized era This is a significant message for education managers and a real worry Factors influencing this service quality delivery, according to respondents include the capacity of human resources at district education offices, supporting facilities at the school, district office levels, financial support at school and district levels, and coordination among education stakeholders in planning, programming and budgeting, just to mention just a few International experience (Ariel Fizbein, 2005) clearly indicates the importance of an appropriate political framework, careful fiscal planning and management, transparency, citizen participation, civil society and the enhanced capacity of sub-national governments Based on Latin American countries experiences, public service delivery reform should also consider its three main actors: citizens, policy makers, and service providers (Omar Azwar, 1999) Our research also indicates that the capacity of sub national government at the district education office level plays an important role in promoting effective education decentralization This is why capacity building for district education offices is a vital component in improving service quality delivery Education Boards The following preliminary research findings based on data collected from a representative sample of districts comprising boards of education, school committee, district education office staff, and school principals including teachers are summarized as follows The main issue of Indonesian education at the present time is the transition from centralized to decentralized system In decentralized system, the authority and responsibility are devolved to local government and community Right now, the community has been involved more intensively in education matters In organizing the community involvement, Minister of National Education of the Republic of Indonesia has issued a Ministerial Decree 044/2002 on Education Board and School Committee to support the capacity of districts and schools respectively on how to plan, manage, finance and delivery of education According to the Ministerial Decree 44/2002, Education Board has several roles in the field as follows: (1) advising in formulation and implementation of education policy; (2) supporting in finance and opinion; (3) controlling in transparent and accountable management and output of education; and (4) mediating between local government, parliament, and community To implement these roles, the Education Board has a function to support the growing attention and commitment of communities toward a quality education implementation (Handbook of Education Board, 2005) The Board also works cooperatively with communities, either individually or collectively, commerce and industry, government, and parliament, in connection with the quality education implementation The other function is to accomodate and analyse aspiration, view, claim, and needs proposed by the community The function of Education Board is also to give inputs, considerations and recommendations to local government/parliament and to the education unit concerning policy and program of education, local education peformance criteria, education personnel criteria, especially 153 teacher/tutor and head of school, education facility criteria, and other bussiness related to education (Handbook of Education Board, 2005) Lastly, the function of Education Board is to support parents and community in order to participate in education and raise funds in term of budgetting the implementation of education at school level In general, the establishment of Education Boards has encouraged active community participation in education intelectually, morally, financially, and materially although it varies from districts to districts due to selection and capacity of the Education Boards For example, it was found that when the Education Boards members were rightly selected, the Education Boards entity tends to be strong which, in turn, the Education Boards tends to the jobs better Second, the higher the capacity of the Education Boards members to the jobs, the better performance of the Education Boards as collective entity E Conclusions In general, the research found that support for decentralization has encouraged greater local/community participation in education intellectually, morally, financially, and materially which, in turn, contributes to a more relevant and valued system which, in turn, will promote sustainability More specifically, effective planning, excellent service quality, and intensive community involvement in education process through boards of education, will support the success of sustainable Indonesian decentralized education in particular which, in turn, will promote sustainable national development in general Capacity building in planning, service quality, and boards of education is required if sustainable Indonesian decentralized education is to be achieved REFERENCES Agus Haryanto (2006) Improving Service Quality Delivery for Decentralized Education at the District Education Office (Dissertation Draft) Melbourne: Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University (RMIT University) Azfar, Omar (1999) Decentralization, Governance and Public Services The Impact of Institutional Arrangements, A Review of literature IRIS Center University of Maryland Didik Suhardi (2006) Improving Education Planning for Decentralized Junior Secondary Education in Indonesia (Dissertation Draft) Melbourne: Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University (RMIT University) Fizbein, Ariel (2005) Citizen Politician and Service Providers The World Bank, Washington DC Ministry of Home Affairs (2001) Policy of Decentralization and Autonomy: Problems and Challenges Mohammad Abduh (2006) Improving the Performances of Education Boards at the District Level in Decentralized Era Melbourne: Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University (RMIT University) 154 Peraturan Pemerintah Nomor 104 Tahun 2000 tentang Perimbangan Keuangan Peraturan Pemerintah Nomor 105 Tahun 2000 tentang Manajemen dan Akuntabilitas Keuangan Daerah Peraturan Pemerintah Nomor 106 tahun 2000 tentang Manajemen Keuangan dan Akuntabilitas dalam Pelaksanaan Sarundayang (2005) Babak Baru Sistem Pemerintahan Daerah Jakarta: Kata Hasta Pustaka Slamet PH (2005) Decentralization of Education A Final Report of Team Leader Package 2: District Capacity Building for Decentralized Basic Education Project (DBEP) Jakarta: Undang-Undang Nomor 32 Tahun 2004 tentang Pemerintahan Daerah Undang-Undang Nomor 33 Tahun 2004 tentang Perimbangan Keuangan antara Pemerintah Daerah dan Pemerintah Pusat Undang-Undang Nomor 20 Tahun 2003 tentang Sistem Pendidikan Nasional Undang-Undang Nomor 22 Tahun 1999 tentang Pemerintahan Daerah Undang-Undang Nomor 25 Tahun 1999 tentang Perimbangan Keuangan antara Pemerintah Daerah dan Pemerintah Pusat 155 Product : Content of Power Point presentation at APEID International Conference, Educational for Sustainable Development, UNICEF, Bangkok, 6,7,8 December 2006 These slide were used to assist my presentation at the 10th UNESCO-APEID International Conference on Education “Learning Together for Tomorrow: Education for Sustainable Development.” Preparing these slides contributed to my understanding of my research focus and helped me organize my ideas about education planning 156 Product : My presentation on the UNICEF Conference Educational for Sustainable Development, Bangkok, – December 2006 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 ... planning for junior secondary education in the Indonesian decentralization era Exhibit : Meeting Agenda The purpose of the meeting: a.Discussion of current issues on the Implementation of Decentralization. .. Exhibit 10 : Minute of meetings for the development of planning guideline 72 Exhibit 11 : Minute of meetings for the development of monitoring and evaluation... provinces on the implementation of decentralization in education This meeting provided preliminary insight into the concerns of education managers in the MONE This allowed me to uncover key themes