L

ow educational achievement among the population of West Java and poorly targeted development goals in Papua have been cited as contributing factors in the low happiness ranking among the people of the respective provinces.

Compared to other provinces on Java Island, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) 2014 survey data, West Java had the lowest happiness index at 67.66.

The highest level of happiness in Java was found to be in Yogyakarta with 70.77, followed by Jakarta, 69.21, East Java, 68.7, Banten, 68.24 and Central Java, 67.81.

The closer a person'€™s happiness index was to 100 the happier the person was recorded as being.

Head of the social statistics division of the West Java office of the BPS, Dyah Anugrah Kuswar-
dhani, said on Friday that West Java'€™s happiness index was lower than that of the Indonesian average because of the people'€™s dissatisfaction with the province'€™s educational standards.

In West Java, Dyah said, satisfaction with education was recorded at 57.68. This was in accordance with the fact that the average time spent in education in the province was only eight years, or equal to second grade of junior high school, she said.

'€œThe survey was conducted nationwide and the samples were proportionate to the surveyed populations,'€ she said.

Dyah said that the survey involved 5,990 samples of households across 27 regencies and cities in West Java.

Of the samples, most respondents (63.88 percent) lived in urban areas.

Of the respondents, 57.86 percent were male heads of households and the rest were female.

Most of the respondents (35.88 percent) were elementary-school graduates and only 8.74 percent were university graduates.

The survey, according to Dyah, was the first ever conducted at the provincial level. In 2013, the same survey was conducted at the national level. '€œThere is no budget for 2015. Maybe it will become a three-yearly program,'€ Dyah said.

At the national level, the highest happiness index was found in Riau Islands province (72.42), followed by Maluku (72.12), North Kalimantan (71.45), East Kalimantan (71.45), Jambi (71.1), North Sulawesi (70.79) and Yogyakarta (70.77).

The six unhappiest provinces were North Sumatra (67.65), Aceh (67.48), Bengkulu (67.43), West Sumatra (66.79), East Nusa Tenggara (66.22) and Papua (60.79).

The happiness index was measured based on the satisfaction level with 10 basic aspects of life comprising health, education, occupation, family income, family harmony, available spare time, social relationships, homes and assets, environment and security.

Separately, the low happiness index for Papua came as a shock to director of the Institute for Civil Strengthening in Papua Yusak Reba, as it starkly contradicted reports from the local administration of its achievements.

'€œIt'€™s shocking. It means that the surveys and good reports by the local administration do not match reality,'€ Yusak told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

Yusak said the local administration had always reported that the people'€™s welfare had been improving. '€œThe survey results should be used by the government to look again at their development targets, which have not provided happiness to the Papua people,'€ he added.