MADRASAH Part 3

CONSTRAINTS ON MADRASAH EDUCATIONS DEVELOPMENT 
AND INEQUITY IN RESOURCE ALLOCATION 

III.1 Constraints of Madrasahs
III.1.1 Non-Existence of a Clear Policy Framework for Extending Adequate Assistance to Private Madrasahs for Their Sustainability.
About 90 percent of madrasahs are private, but they operate in partnership with MORA and MONE in terms of their curriculum and accreditation requirements. Only a small fraction of them receives extremely limited inputs from the government in form of small grants, textbooks and seconded teachers. Although, under Education Act No. 2 of 1998, private madrasahs are part of the National education system, yet the support extended to them by Government is meager as compared to their genuine requirements for imparting quality education. There is a need to appreciate the substantial role private madrasahs are playing in providing basic education without significant inputs from the government. It is necessary to draw up a clear policy framework for extending assistance to private madrasahs on a systematic and long-term basis under a carefully formulated criteria. Since free basic education is the constitutional right of each child, provision of basic education not can be left entirely to the private sector without substantial assistance from the government, specially when they enroll most pupils from lower income groups, and when the majority of the madrasahs are located in the poorer rural, or urban-under-served areas. Without the government inputs, the quality of private madrasahs, is declining. There is a need to carefully review the operational needs of madrasah, especially of those run by private yayasan (foundation) or religious groups, in terms of teachers, instructional materials and facilities, and provide them the basic inputs required for the delivery of the quality education. Under Education Act No. 2 and the subsequent Decrees issued by government, the role of MORA in sharing the responsibility of providing basic and secondary education with MONE, has been recognized Although the principles of equity of access and quality, relevancy and efficiency of education have been emphasized in the State Policy Guidelines, but their implementation in respect of private madrasahs has still a long way to go. Therefore, it is necessary to draw up a clear policy framework for extending assistance to private madrasahs on a systematic basis under carefully formulated criteria for their long-term sustainability.

III.1.2 Teachers’ Under-Qualification, Mismatch and Non-permanent Employment Status
Under Education Act No. 2, madrasahs are required to follow all MONE regulations pertaining to curriculum (in addition to the religious educational curriculum), textbooks, examinations systems, etc. However, availability of qualified teachers (specially in science, mathematics and English) in madrasah is far satisfactory. Under agreement of the three Ministries, (MORA, MONE and MONA) the MONE is responsible to provide teachers for general subjects to Madrasahs but in actuality, deployment of MONE Teachers for general (core) subjects in Madrasahs is insignificant.

III.1.3 Un-economical Enrolment Size in Madrasahs
The madrasahs average school enrolment size is less than 150 in most provinces, because of their location in rural and remote areas. A small madrasah is very uneconomical and is indicative, if it is to be fully financed though tuition fees and donations from the local communities which are pre-dominantly poor.

III.1.4 Lack of Laboratory and Library Facilities. 
Most public madrasahs have reasonably good classroom facilities, but teacher’ under qualification and miss-match are serious problems for them as well. About 25 MI and 70 public MTs have been upgraded into Model Madrasahs. They have been provided laboratory and library facilities (under two ADB projects). They are expected to serve as resources centers for the other public and private madrasahs of their specified catchment areas. However, their actual success to serve as leaders and as resources centers is yet be demonstrated or tested. On the average, only about 65 percent of their teachers had the minimum prescribed qualification of D3 or above. About 40 percent of the teachers were teaching the subjects in which they were not qualified.
About 46 percent of teachers of private madrasah are either part-time or non-regular. There is only one regular teacher for every 81 students only 10 percent of their teachers are full-time who are mostly graduates of IAINs (or Islamic Religious Education Institution) without a strong background in teaching of science, mathematics, or English. There is more that 60 percent of mismatch between the subjects being taught by them and the subjects of their qualifications.

III.1.5 Inadequate Availability of Textbooks.
The madrasah students are generally at the last receiving and in receiving the free textbook form MONE under the exiting textbook delivery system (which is budgeted and managed under MONE). For example according to a sample survey in 1997-1998 only about 30 percent of children of the public MTs received the textbooks of the new curriculum after mid year, and about 30 percent purchased their own textbooks, while the remaining 40 percent relied mainly on class notes. The situation had been changed since the implementation of textbooks project. Gradually, the availability of students’ textbook had improved. However, reference books, some of textbooks and reading materials are still lacking in the madrasahs’ library.
In case of private MTs, which generally enroll students from lower income classes, the situation was found to be worst. Sample classes of private MTs visited by the researchers indicated that less than 5 students in a class had textbooks of core subjects. The Government policy emphasized achieving equity in educational access and upgrading of quality of madrasahs education to bring it equivalent to that of SMPs. This requires matching inputs to MTs and provision of textbooks to children in MTs (both public and private) at par with the children in the general junior secondary schools (SMPs) but implementation of the equity needs reforms both in textbooks’ budgeting and delivery system.

III.1.6 Unfavorable Policy on Teachers’ Deployment and Provision of Physical Facilities. 
According to general education production function, an educational output (achievement) depends upon a mix of several inputs (e.g. student’ intelligence and preparation, parents socio-economic background, home environment, teachers qualification and experience, textbooks, peer group, school management, etc). Although the impact of some of these traditional inputs on educational achievement has been questioned in the research findings, yet approximate equity of inputs will have to be achieved gradually for achieving the equity of output, because findings of these studies are controversial due to sample and design problems. At present, quantity as well as quality of education inputs in madrasahs is far below those being extended to SMPs. For example, in case of public schools under MONE for example, one regular teacher is being provided public SMPs for every 19 pupils as compared to one regular teacher provided for every 30 students in public MTs. in case of private MTs, one regular teacher is being provided for 81 students as compared to one regular teacher for 22 pupils in private SMPs. Furthermore, even in case of regular teacher, MORA teachers are far less qualified and about 30 percent of their Principals are only senior secondary graduates. Teachers’ upgrading is one of serious challenges, which is a fundamental requirement for qualitative improvement and successful implementation of the new curriculum. There are similar disparities among SMPs and MTs in their physical facilities and in availability of science laboratories, libraries, books, etc.

III.1.7 Inadequacies of Evaluation
For any qualitative improvement in the teaching-learning process, corresponding reforms in educational testing and evaluation methodologies are also required. The existing evaluation system cannot discriminate between various levels of learning, with the result that there is no significant difference between the students’ pass percentages in schools with different qualitative inputs and endeavors.

III.1.8 Lack of Educational Supervision 
There are only 654 supervisors for more than 8,000 MTs spread over 299 districts and municipalities. Ironically, about 36 percent of them posse qualification lower than S1. Most of them have no training and professional supervision. Their traveling budget is extremely low. Thus, virtually there exists no System of educational supervision.

III.2 Inequity in Educational Inputs 
As stated earlier, madrasahs are predominantly (more than 90 percent) private and community based schools, offering almost the same curricula, (besides religious education) as their equivalent MONE schools. They mostly provide schooling facilities to poorer or marginal communities whose children are unable to get access to MONE schools due to inaccessible location, higher cost or insufficient admission places. Most of the children enrolled in private madrasahs come from lower income and poor families who can not afford to pay high fees or other donations.

At present, the government assistance to most of madrasahs is non-existent or extremely inadequate. Consequently, the resources available or expenditure per students in madrasahs, are less than half of their counterpart government schools. The total average in-school expenditure per student per annum in private elementary madrasahs (MI) is Rp. 93,000,- as compared to Rp. 157,000,- in public SDs. This disparity is worse at Junior Secondary Level where private madrasahs spend Rp. 104,000,- per student as compared to Rp. 300,000,- in public SMPs. Average government expenditure per student per annum in private madrasahs ibtidaiyah MIS is only Rp. 64,000,- as compare to Rp. 182,000,- in MONE’s primary school (SDN). At Junior Secondary Level, total government expenditure per student per annum in private madrasahs is only Rp. 6,000,- as compared to Rp. 245,000,- in public schools SMPs (See Table 4.1 for comparison).
Children of private madrasahs rarely get free textbooks from MONE. The secondment of Government teachers to private madrasahs is also insignificant ( 1 per 100 pupils at primary level and  0.5 in case of secondary level). Therefor, most of private madrasahs hire non-permanent or part time teachers (about 80 percent on the average). As a consequence of the lack of essential inputs to madrasahs, quality of their facilities and instructions is very low. Despite all this, most parents of private madrasahs children who belong to poorer segment of society, end up paying more than 70 percent of the schooling cost as compared to less than 18 percent paid by parents of public schools. In monetary terms, on the average, they often pay to madrasah in fees and donations almost double the amount paid by parents of public schools under MONE. Low expenditure per pupil in madrasahs, is reflecting in the form of inadequate essential inputs for the teaching-process and hence low educational quality, which in turn, perpetuates socio-economic inequities among various strata of Indonesian society.