Lessons Learnt from PRIMA Pendidikan? (1)

TPKs and schools are the two engines for educational development. PRIMA Pendidikan empowers them simultaneously and it creates synergetic effects. Considering Indonesia’s administrative, social and geographic conditions, kecamatan is a unique and very important unit for development.

In the previous system of centralized administration, Kecamatan had few, if any, roles to play in education. Kecamatan, as an administrative unit under Bupati or Walikota and in the command line from the Ministry of Home Affairs, had no authority to deal with education. This picture did not change much even after decentralization started in 2001. Officially, schools were brought under the jurisdiction of Kabupaten/Kota government but Kecamatan administration was basically kept outside school affairs.

PRIMA Pendidikan has tried a different system. It organized TPK at kecamatan-level and made Kecamatan administration take part in it. Either Camat (head of Kecamatan) or head of Cabang Dinas Kecamatan (UPTD, Kecamatan Education Office) became chairman and actively led TPK activities in the kecamatan. Generally, their leadership was highly effective to coordinate TPK activities, mobilize community resources and raise people’s awareness. Many Camat gladly took up this new role and showed their keen concern over education in their kecamatan. It is true that some observers resist this model saying it creates a duplication of management. This is a misunderstanding of the roles and responsibilities of the stakeholders involved. In fact, TPK and Camat as its member did not duplicate some mandates but filled the void existent in the educational administrative system of Indonesia.

As PRIMA Pendidikan has testified, a kecamatan-level organization like TPK has several benefits. It can:

1. interconnect schools in Kecamatan (sub-district);
2. interconnect residents in Kecamatan;
3. link schools to residents; and
4. connect schools and residents to Kabupaten (District) / Kota (City) administration.

Under the present system, Kabupaten/Kota governments are responsible for educational management. Important educational organizations such as Dewan Pendidikan (Education Board), MKKS (School Principals’ Forum) and MGMP (Subject-wise Teachers’ Forum) are all mandated at the kabupaten/kota level accordingly while school committees are mandated at the school level. The organizational distance between school and kabupaten/kota is very large, however, and the organizations’ effectiveness in improving educational quality is highly questionable. By contrast, MGMP and MKKS reorganized at the kecamatan level have been successful in impacting directly on the change of teacher behavior in the school and classroom.

Regarding the fourth point above in particular, it should be noted that TPK can become the kecamatan-level equivalent of Dewan Pendidikan serving as its “kecamatan branch or chapter.” If such a system is put in place kabupaten/kota-wise, Dewan Pendidikan will be able to function in a highly effective manner to accomplish its mandates.

Another note to make is that TPK is quite appropriate for junior secondary education but may not be so for primary education. This is simply because of the number of schools in any given kecamatan: there may be too many primary schools to be organized under one TPK. If PRIMA Pendidikan is to be extended to cover primary schools, TPK needs to be remodeled to cope with this particular constraint.

PRIMA Pendidikan has proved that the model is highly appropriate and workable. One reason why the experiment was successful was that PRIMA Pendidikan covered all junior secondary schools and treated them in an equitable manner. PRIMA Pendidikan did not take a “model school” or “pilot school” approach (*). This greatly motivated principals and teachers (particularly those in “poor” or “forgotten” schools) and encouraged people to participate in various TPK activities. Equal footing is essential for schools to take active part in inter-school activities like MGMP and MKKS. It is also instrumental to instill the sense of collective responsibility for education into kecamatan people.

Unfortunately, schools in Indonesia are intricately segmented and rarely receive equal treatment. They are either SMP (under MONE) or MTs (under MORA); either public or private; either rich-and-good or poor-and-bad; either “International,” “National,” “Potential” or “Poor.” Various forms of assistance (grants, programs, training, etc.) are available but, in many cases, administered selectively and according to the school affiliations or categories. As a result, in any given locality, some schools receive more than others or, worse, only a few “model” schools are taken care of while the rest are left hungry.

Such a condition will never foster a sense of collective responsibility among local residents. As PRIMA Pendidikan has shown, equal treatment of all schools is the key element for the program successfully to inspire the wide range of stakeholders. It is therefore recommendable that schools be given equitable assistance and that this fact be made publicly known.

* For Lesson Study activities, the project has selected one pilot TPK and one pilot school per kabupaten. This was inevitable due to the limited manpower on the side of the JICA Experts and to ensure quality of Lesson Study.

PRIMA Pendidikan has clearly proved that a block grant is far better spent by the school than finely earmarked budget or subsidies. As is the case, schools have different needs and aspirations and no other scheme can fully satisfy them. Block grant allows the most efficient and effective use of available funds. To ensure this, however, the block grant should be proposal-based.

It is strongly recommended for local governments to give school routine budget (or at least part of it) as a block grant without specifying purposes. The grant, however, should be spent according to the proposal that was submitted by the school and screened and approved by the local government in advance. Nonetheless, freedom to choose is what people most appreciate.

A few difficulties arise in implementing this new scheme. One is the regulatory constraint imposed on block grant: it is not that block grant is prohibited but that local governments have no experience of administering block grant before. They need to clear some procedural questions to initiate this scheme. Another difficulty is with screening the proposals. Hundreds of proposals will flood in to Dinas Pendidikan (Education Office) of local governments. Dinas Pendidikan needs to screen and approve them in rather a short period with limited personnel. One way to cope with this is to mobilize pengawas (school supervisors).

Still another difficulty is with securing the quality of proposals. PRIMA Pendidikan experiences suggest that a number of schools will have a great difficulty to write a “passable” proposal even after receiving extensive training. Many tend to propose to buy something or rehabilitate something only. This simply reflects the schools’ current situation but, at the same time, indicates the schools’ inability to figure out what else they can do to improve their schools and education. PRIMA Pendidikan tried to overcome this problem with assigning field consultants, who assisted individual schools with advice and consultation. Pengawas, once again, can be assigned to this task but it may take time for schools to become competent to produce quality proposals. There is no shortcut, however. The only way to achieve this is implementing this new proposal-based block grant scheme: “learning by doing” or “on-the-job training” is the only answer to this problem.