Improving the quality of education services and outcomes is a national priority for the Indonesian Government. While the central and subnational governments have increased resources for education—with the constitution mandating 20 percent of expenditures to be spent on education—educational outcomes have not significantly improved within the last decade. Initial PROSPERA analysis indicates that the fiscal outlook will become increasingly constrained and the ability to maximize value for money for public spending will become more crucial. This implies that Indonesia should make its education spending more efficient, i.e., improving education outcomes attainment (such as access expansion to education services) for the current level of spending.
PROSPERA is supporting the Ministry of Finance (MoF) in establishing spending review processes and extending them to include periodical medium-term Thematic Sector Review. The education sector has been chosen as the pilot sector, where PROSPERA will assist MoF as well as other relevant stakeholders, mainly the Ministry of Education and Culture, in conducting the review. One of SMERU’s researchers is designated as a Senior Economist to conduct the Education Thematic Sector Review.
- To assess the existing conditions of the education sector and policy
- To assess the performance of the existing education spending programs
- To provide recommendations for policy improvement and budget reallocations to ensure more effective and efficient spending
The study is expected to emphasize the improvement of vocational education outcomes and address issues related to teachers.
- Data and supporting information compilation and review: create an integrated dataset as basis for the analyses.
- Performance assessment: conduct research/analysis to assess the performance of education spending through three focus areas of the reviews: education policy (strategic review), education spending (budget review), and focused issue of high importance for the stakeholders (in-depth review).
- Methodology development and transfer of knowledge: develop workable methodology for each determined component of performance assessment and lead the team to work together with counterparts in applying the methodology to develop the Thematic Sector Review report.
- Recommendations development: After completing the review, the Senior Economist shall formulate recommendations with consultations with the Spending TA and counterparts.
