Policy Research
Even in August 1998, one year into Indonesia’s economic crisis, there were still no new nationally representative data on its social impact.
Infrastructures play a crucial role in economic development and poverty reduction. The economic crisis in 1997-98 severely curtailed the government’s capacity to maintain the existing infrastructures, which could adversely affect the prospects for future economic development and poverty reduction in the country.
This paper investigates the correlates of student performance in mathematics and dictation tests among schoolchildren in Indonesia. This is the first such study to use a new nationally representative sample of Indonesian primary‐school students. Our dataset includes unique data on teacher absenteeism collected through direct observation, the first ever in Indonesia.
Measuring unemployment in developing countries is not straightforward due to the presence of a large number of discouraged workers. Including them into the labor force is sometimes appropriate in order to reflect the true state of unemployment. However, the decision must be based on careful research.
This paper uses the first nationally representative survey of teacher absence collected through direct observation to determine the patterns of absence among full-time teachers in public primary schools in Indonesia. Based on the survey data, the authors found a national teacher absence rate of 19%, with almost half of the absences due to unacceptable reasons.
