Transforming Indonesia’s Centralized Education System to School-Based Management

A s school systems around the world seek to improve their outcomes and practices, much attention has been focused on school management and governance, among many other important aspects of providing education. In 2003, the Indonesian government— at that time, one of the most centralized nations in the world—began to decentralize the governance of its primary and secondary education system as part of broader changes designed to improve education by shifting responsibilities to district and local control. Under the new system, schools were given authority to manage their operations independently according to student needs and were asked to engage the local community to improve the quality of education. This decentralized form of school management, often called school-based management (SBM), required a major shift in thinking and substantial improvement in the capacity of principals, teachers, and the community to provide leadership, develop alternatives to meet local educational needs, and engage parents and the community in school governance. Eight years after Indonesia implemented SBM, the World Bank ask RAND to conduct the first nationwide comprehensive assessment of SBM implementation and to provide recommendations to improve it where needed. The RAND researchers examined the following: • current status of the implementation • factors associated with successful SBM • effects of SBM on student achievement.