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Indonesia has succeeded in filling its classrooms—now it must protect its budget to ensure its children are actually learning.
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A junior high school teacher conducts an online lesson in an empty classroom after local authorities mandated remote learning due to haze from land and forest fires in Pontianak, West Kalimantan, on Sept. 7, 2026. (AFP/Bay Ismoyo)
I
ndonesia’s modest gains in the latest Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) should be welcomed, but never mistaken for a mission accomplished.
The 2025 results show Indonesian 15-year-olds inching upward: reading rose to 365 and science to 389, up from 359 and 383, respectively, in 2022. Mathematics slipped from 366 to 364.
While these shifts are not statistically significant according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the wider chasm remains troubling especially given that Indonesia aspires to join the elite group.
Only 27 percent of Indonesian students reached baseline Level 2 proficiency in reading, against an OECD average of 69 percent. In math, just 17 percent cleared the bar compared with 65 percent globally; in science, the gap was 37 percent to 74 percent.
These numbers do not justify easing up. They demand doubling down.
Over the past two decades, Indonesia demonstrated that sustained investment and policy continuity can successfully expand access. The nine-year compulsory schooling mandate, anchored by the 2003 National Education System Law, effectively opened classroom doors nationwide: the share of 15-year-olds enrolled in formal education nearly doubled, surging from roughly 46 percent in 2003 to 90 percent in 2025.
Parallel efforts targeted quality and equity. The 2005 Teacher Law instituted certification to lift professional standards and compensation. Targeted financial assistance and scholarships like the Smart Indonesia Program (PIP) and Onward Indonesia Scholarship (BIM) kept vulnerable students enrolled, alongside steady investments in infrastructure across the archipelago's most disadvantaged and remote frontiers.
