Draft for Circulation, Validation, Comments and Recommendations(as of 15 Jan 2008)
Asia and the Pacific
Education for All (EFA)
Mid-Decade Assessment
Insular Southeast Asia
SUB-REGIONAL SYNTHESIS REPORT
Table of Contents
Part I: Background of Insular Southeast AsiaSubregional and overview of thematic issues
Introduction to the EFA MDA Subregional Report
Overview of the Subregion
Background of educational developments in the subregion
Education Financing and Budget for the subregion
Identifying the “Unreached” population in the subregion
Cross-Cutting and Thematic Issues in the Subregion
Part II: Insular Southeast AsiaSubregional Progress and Challenges Goal by Goal Summary of National Reports
Goal 1: ECCE
Goal 2: Primary-Basic Education
Goal 3: Life Skills
Goal 4: Literacy
Goal 5: Gender Equality
Goal 6: Quality
Part III: Progress in Achieving EFA Goals in the Countries the Insular Southeast Asia Sub- Regional - Country Summaries
Indonesia
Goal 1: Early Childhood Care and Education
Goal 2: Universal Basic Education/Primary Education
Goal 3: Life Skills and Lifelong Learning
Goal 4: Literacy
Goal 5: Gender
Goal 6: Quality
Malaysia
Goal 1: Early Childhood Care and Education
Goal 2: Universal Basic Education/Primary Education
Goal 3: Life Skills and Lifelong Learning
Goal 4: Literacy
Goal 5: Gender
Goal 6: Quality
Philippines
Goal 1: Early Childhood Care and Education
Goal 2: Universal Basic Education/Primary Education
Goal 3: Life Skills and Lifelong Learning
Goal 4: Literacy
Goal 5: Gender
Goal 6: Quality
Overall Conclusions and Policy Recommendations
ACRONYMS
ALS -Alternative Learning System
A&E-Accreditation and Equivalency
BALS-Bureau of Alternative Learning System (Philippines)
BESRA-Basic Education Sector Reform Agenda
BNSP-Board of National Education Standards (Indonesia)
BOS -Bantuan Operasional Sekolah or
School Operational Budget (Indonesia)
BSP-National Bureau of Statistics (Indonesia)
CEDAW-Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination
CFSS-Child-friendlySchool System
CHED-Commission on Higher Education (Philippines)
CRC-Convention on the Rights of the Child
Against Women
CWC-Commission on the Welfare of Children (Philippines)
DepEd-Department of Education (Philippines)
DOS-Department of Statistics (Malaysia)
DSWD-Department of Social Welfare and Development (Philippines)
ECCD-Early Childhood Care and Development (Philippines)
ECCE-Early Childhood Care and Education
EDMP-Education Development Master Plan (Malaysia)
EFA-Education for All
FLEMMS -Functional Literacy, Education and Mass Media Survey
(Philippines)
GAD-Gender and Development
GDP-Gross Domestic Product
GER-Gross Enrolment Rate
GIR-Gross Intake rate
GNI-Gross National Income
GPI-Gender Parity Index
HDI-Human Development Index
Insular SEAS-Insular Southeast Asia
ILO-International Labour Organization
ISSC-Integrated Secondary School Curriculum (Malaysia)
JHOEA-Department of Orang Asli (Malaysia)
KEMAS-Department of Regional and Rural Development (Indonesia)
KIA2M -Program Kelas Intervensi Asas Membaca dan Menulis or ---- (Malaysia)
LGUs-Local Government Units
MDA-Mid-decade Assessment
MCFW-Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development (Indonesia)
MDG-Millennium Development Goals
MECD-Ministry of Entrepreneur and Cooperative Development
MHR-Ministry of Human Resources (Malaysia)
MLFS-Malaysia Labour Force Survey
MOE-Ministry of Education (Malaysia)
MOH-Ministry of Health (Indonesia)
MOHE-Ministry of Higher Education (Malaysia)
MoNE-Ministry of National Education (Indonesia)
MOOE-Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses
MoRA-Ministry of Religious Affairs (Indonesia)
MRRD-Ministry of Regional and Rural Development (Indonesia)
MTPDP-Medium-Term Philippine Development Plan (Philippines)
MWFCD-Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development
(Malaysia)
NGOs-Non-government Organizations
NACEWFCL-National Action Committee for the Elimination of the Worst
Forms of Child Labour (Indonesia)
NER-Net Enrolment Rate
NFE-Nonformal Education
NIR-Net Intake Rate
NPE-National Philosophy of Education (Malaysia)
NPSC-New Primary School Curriculum (Malaysia)
NPW-National Policy for Women (Malaysia)
OSY-Out-of-school Youth
PERPADUAN-Department of National Unity and Integration (Indonesia)
PPGD-Philippine Plan for Gender-Responsive Development (Philippines)
PTCA-Parents, Teachers and Community Associations
PTR-Pupil-Teacher Ratio
RA-Republic Act (Philippines)
RENSTRA-Rencana Strategis Kementerian/lembaga
or Medium Term Strategic Plan (Indonesia)
SBM-School-based Management
SED-State Education Department (Malaysia)
SEF-Special Education Fund (Philippines-LGUs)
SENS-Special Education National Schools (Malaysia)
SIP-School Improvement Plan
SPED-Special Education
TEDP-Teacher Education and Development Program (Philippines)
TESDA-Technical Education and Skills Development Authority
TVET-Technical-Vocational Education and Training
(Philippines)
UIS-UNESCO Institute of Statistics
UNGEI-United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative
WEF-World Education Forum
WEI-World Education Indicators
LIST OF GRAPHS AND TABLES
Chart 1- Structure of Indonesian Education System
Chart 2- Structure of Malaysian Education System
Chart 3- Structure of the Philippine Education System
Figure 1-Gross Enrolment Ratio in ECCE
Figure 2-Percentage of New Entrants to Grade 1 with ECCE Experience
Figure 3-Geographical Variations in GER for ECCE, 2005
Figure 4-Primary Education Gross and Net Enrolment Rates, 2000 and 2005
Figure 5-Secondary Education Gross and Net Enrolment Rates, 2000 and 2005
Figure 6-Expenditure in Primary Education as Percentage of Total Expenditure for
Figure 7- Adult Literacy Rate, 5 years old and above
Figure 8- Gender Disparity in Adult Literacy Rate
Figure 9-Survival Rate to Grade 5
Table 1- MDG Progress in Insular Southeast Asia
Table 2- Human Development Index of Insular Southeast Asian Countries,
Value and Rank, 2000-2005
Table 3- Percentage of Education Expenditure
Table 4- Scholarship and Other Financial Incentive Programs in the Subregion
Table 5-Percentage of Preprimary PrivateCenter Enrolment
Table 6-Gender Disparities in ECCE GER
Table 7-Gender Disparities in Percentage of Grade 1 Entrants with ECCE Experience
Table 8-Composition of Basic Education and Compulsory Education
Table 9-Gross Intake Rate and Net Intake Rate in Primary EducationEducation
Table 10 -GER and NER, Primary Education Level
Table 11-GER and NER, Secondary Level
Table 12-Youth Literacy Rate, 15-24 years old
Table 13-Transition Rate from Primary to Secondary Levels and Percentage of
Enrolment in TVET in Secondary Education
Table 14- Youth Literacy Rates, by Sex
Table 15- Gender Parity Index in ECCE EFA Core Indicators
Table 16- Gender Parity Index for Key Indicators in Primary and Secondary Education
Table 17- Gender Parity Index in Youth Literacy
Table 18- Gender Parity in Adult literacy
Table 19- Percentage of Female Teachers in Primary and Secondary Education
Levels and Vocation or Technical Education
Table 20- Progress Achieved in Pupil-Teacher Ratio
Table 21-Percentage of Education Expenditure
Table 22-Survival Rate to Grade 5, Male-Female
Table 23-GPI for Selected EFA Indicators, Indonesia
Table 24-GPI for Selected EFA Indicators, Malaysia
Table 25-GPI in Selected Access and Efficiency Indicators, Philippines
Table 26-Progress in SelectedCore EFA MDA Indicators
PART I:
Background of Subregion and Overview of Thematic Issues
- INTRODUCTION OF EFA MDA SUBREGIONAL REPORT
(Uniform c/o UNESCO-AIMS)
During the World Conference on Education for All (EFA) in Jomtien, Thailand (5-9 March 1990), delegates from 155 countries and representatives from over 150 organizations reaffirmed their collective commitment to education as a human right and pledged to work towards the universalization of primary education and the reduction of illiteracy by the end of the decade. Targets and strategies for providing universal access and improving equity and learning were enshrined in the Jomtien Framework for Action. By the year 2000, however, national assessments showed that the goals have not yet been achieved.
At the World Education Forum (Dakar, Senegal, April 2000), 1,100 participants reaffirmed their commitment to achieving Education for All by the year 2015. The Dakar Framework for Action proposed set six major goals and proposed 12 major strategies to realize them.Moreover, it placed the main responsibility for achieving the EFA goals on Member States, which were encouraged and supported in their development of national plans of action.
In Asia and the Pacific, UNESCO Bangkok, UNICEF and the Regional Thematic Working Group (TWG) on EFA have been working together to assist countries in their monitoring and assessment of progress towards EFA and identifying remaining gaps in reaching the unreached. Thus, the EFA mid-decade assessment called for the implementation of national and regional assessmentsto identify problems, issues, policies and strategies to ensure that education will reach underserved groups. Where relevant data are available, statistical analysis for national EFA mid-decade assessment reports focused on the gaps in access to various levels of quality education acrossthe diversestrata and groups in society.
During the third quarter of 2007, in the context of the EFA mid-decade assessment and the mid-term review of education policies and reforms aimed at expanding the provision of education across various strata and groups in society, UNESCO Bangkok, in collaboration and consultation with Member States and the Thematic Working Group (TWG), began the process of drafting the subregional synthesis EFA MDA reports for six subregions in Asia and the Pacific:
- East Asia(China, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and Mongolia)
- Pacific (Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Papua New Guinea, Tonga,
Samoa,Solomons, Palau, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu)
- South and West Asia (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka,
Pakistan, and Iran)
- Central Asia(Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan)
- Mekong Region(Vietnam, Thailand, Lao PDR, Cambodia, and Myanmar)
- Insular Southeast Asia(Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia)
The overall objective of the subregional synthesis reports is to undertake a comparative assessment of progress towards EFA in each of the subregions, focusing on successes and remaining challenges in reaching the unreached. Subregional synthesis reports will serve four main purposes:
a)Because of their distinctive historical, socioeconomic and cultural contexts, each subregion faces a different set of challenges in achieving the goals of EFA by 2015. By highlighting the contextual background of education in each subregion, the synthesis reports will provide a framework for developing targeted policies and strategies that specifically address the unique challenges of each subregion;
b)Synthesis reports will be beneficial as they will provide an opportunity for comparative analysis of progress towards EFA within the subregions using statistical data and country examples;
c)They will raise the profiles of the subregions amongst UN agencies and donors; and
d)They will contribute to the Mid-term Review of National Education Policy and the regional synthesis report on EFA MDA in the Asia Pacific.
The Subregional Synthesis Reports are divided into three sections with inputs from three different sources. The first section (Part I) presentsthe background and overview of the subregion and key thematic and cross-cutting issues, based on the findings from thematic reports and studies submitted by EFA partners, development agencies, and members of the Thematic Working Group (TWG) on EFA; the second section (Part II) summarizes achievements and challenges in attaining the six EFA goals for the subregion with inputs drawn from the country national reports and summary questionnaires; and the third section (Part III) consists of country summaries of progress for the six EFA goals, based on the national reports. Moreover, Part II includes a subregional statistical profile (MDA core indicators, tables and graphs, and thematic maps), and Part III includes country statistical profiles. These statistical inputs were provided by the UNESCO Institute for Statistic (UIS).
This report focuses on Insular Southeast Asia (InsularSEAS) with particular attention to three countries (Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines) that participated in theEFA 2015 mid-decade assessment. In order to present a more complete picture of InsularSEAS, portions of Part I such as economic and development background include profiles and information on the other countries in the subregion other than the participating countries.
B. OVERVIEW OF THE INSULAR SOUTHEAST ASIAN SUBREGION
Southeast Asia is generally divided into two geographicalsubregions: (a) the Mainland Southeast Asia; and (b) Insular Southeast Asia. The mainland consists of Thailand, Laos, Burma, Cambodia and Vietnam while the insular half comprises the island or peninsular countries of Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Timor Leste.
As a whole, Southeast Asia covers a total 4,500,000 square km. with InsularSEAS comprising 58.46 percent (2,630,610 sq. km) of this land area. The largest country in the subregion is Indonesia which straddles the equator with around 13,500 islands ranging from atolls to the huge island of Sumatra that encompasses 1,919,440 sq. km. Next largest is Malaysia which is geographically divided into Peninsular Malaysia on the mainland and East Malaysia on Borneo, the largest island not only in Insular SEAS but in the entire Southeast Asian region. Often considered an archipelagic nation, Malaysia has a total land area of 329,750 sq. km. The Philippine archipelago, generally delineated into three major island/island groups(i.e., Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao), consists of about 7,100 islands with a total land area of 300,000 sq. km.Brunei Darussalam is a small state of 5,765 sq. km. located at the northeast part of the island of Borneo. By the foot of the Malay Peninsula, the smallest among the subregion’s countries is the city-state of Singaporewith its land area of 648 sq. km.The youngest among the Southeast Asian countries and located at the island of Timor in the eastern part of Indonesia, Timor Leste has a land area of 15,007 sq. km. (Lim 2004, Reid 2002).
Historical and Political Background
The early precolonial sociopolitical development in InsularSEAS is largely shaped by its geographical attributes. As with the rest of Southeast Asia, it is within the humid tropics since it is located on the equator. It consists of varied landscapes of Southeast Sumatra’s extensive mangrove swamps; Bali, Java and Central Luzon’s fertile plains; interior Borneo’s rainforest; and eastern Indonesia’s tiny coral islands. As early as six thousand years ago, the peoples of InsularSEAS subsisted through nomadic hunting and gathering, semisedentary fishing and gathering or semisedentary cultivation of wild plant species such as yams, and coconuts and then domestication of forest trees like durian, breadfruit and banana. From such practices, human communities thrived across the varied landscapes and different ecological zones characterized by small independent settlements scattered throughout the subregion. There was no political centralization and natural affinity towards the formation of a state. Within these settlements, however, a moral and religious entity functions as the central authority (Andaya 1996).
The development of settlements was characterized by the control of power and wealth shaped by access to the sea.The InsularSEAS is strategically located along the great trading routes stretching from China to India. Trading ships sailed between China and Southeast Asia and between Southeast Asia and India. To reach China, however, traders had to negotiate the Straits of Malacca with Malaysiato the east and the Indonesian island of Sumatrato the west. The centers of state power and sources of wealth thrived through the control of resources and manpower and shipping and routes and trade, commodities and markets. The first dominant power to arise in the archipelago was Srivijayabased in Sumatra. From the fifth century, the capital, Palembang, became a major seaport and functioned as an entryto the Spice Route between India and China. Srivijaya was succeeded by the powercenters of Samudra, Pasai, Aceh, Palembang and Riau-Ligga (Reid 2005). Other kingdoms within the subregion were that of the Javanese Majapahit which flourished from 12th to 15th century, Bugis-Makassar on the islands of Sulawesi and the Taosug on the Sulu archipelago as well as Brunei on the side of Borneo facing the South China Sea (Talib 1996). These can be considered as large port settlements or as Andaya (2004) called it, port-estates. The expansion of these port-estates was, however, prevented by the coming of the Europeans.
Western colonization dates back to the16th century mainly for economic reasons. The Europeans initially entered through the Atlantic Ocean as trade partners. The emerging European powers needed more raw materials as a result of the industrial revolution and targetedSoutheast Asia’s rich natural resources. Also by colonizing the region, especially InsularSEAS, European manufactured goods had a ready market and the strategic trade route between India and China was secured (Lim 2004). Its diverse ecosystem boasts of rich natural resources both from its land and waters including fossil fuel, nickel, iron coal, tin, pearls, rubber tress, and wood, as well as the subregion’s rich flora and fauna. Its waters are home to thousands of species of fish and other marine source of food. InsularSEAS, especially the Indonesian archipelago, was also a source of much-sought spices, medicines and other tropical products.
The first European to venture to the InsularSEAStrade route and establish a base in Malacca and Timor were the Portuguese. Decades later (1560s), Spanish colonizers came to the Philippines. By the beginning of the 17th century, however, the power of Catholic Portugal and Spainbegan to decline as theProtestant nations of England and the Netherlands were rising. The Dutch and the British came to the subregion in the form of the Dutch East India Company and the British East India Company, respectively. They became archrival in conquering the trade route and naturally rich InsularSEAS. The Dutch came to Asiaseeking its produce and riches. Among the major targets were the spice-rich islands of the present day Sulawesi and Malukuin Indonesia. Engaging first in trade with local kingdoms, the Dutch later monopolized the spice trade to Europe by ejecting the Portuguese, later destroying the local kingdoms and founding the city of Batavia, the present day Jakarta as a trading base. The Dutch then extended its colony into Java and surrounding islands. On the other hand, the British started in Penang and then established its trading base in Singapore.