Abstract

Since 1998, regional governments in Indonesia have had greater autonomy due to the commencement of a reformation movement across Indonesia. Large portions of education management were delegated to the regional governments. Because of this, the education level varies strongly across Indonesia’ provinces. Referring to the data provided by the Indonesian Bureau of Statistics, it is found that Eastern Indonesia generally has a higher rate of uneducated than Western Indonesia. We review the current condition of Indonesian education in terms of regional disparity among eastern and western provinces and study the correlation between inequality in education and other related aspects, such as social and economic conditions. We find that inequality issues on socio-economic conditions are reflected in the education disparity between Eastern and Western Indonesia. By employing panel data with provinces as units of observations, we find that the difference in regional development among Indonesian provinces influences education issues. By evaluating the standard deviation of the statistic we were able to identify socio-economic factors that influence the regional education disparity.

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