Kennial Caroline Laia & Natasia Christy Wahyuni – Indonesia ranks second from the bottom in an international education survey conducted to assess students' skill in mathematics, science and reading, it was revealed on Wednesday.

The first of six volumes detailing the results of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's Program for International Student Assessment 2012 (PISA) reflects the poor condition of education in the country, experts said.

The test, conducted in 2012, was taken by more than half a million randomly selected students aged 15 and 16 from 65 countries.

Ranked 64th out of a total of 65 countries, Indonesia's position is far behind other Asian countries including China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Macau and Japan. In 2009, Indonesia ranked 57th out of 65 countries despite Asia being declared the continent with the best education system.

The OECD's PISA scores, considered the global benchmark for evaluating the quality, equity and efficiency of school systems, provides an opportunity to identify effective methods or policies that can be adapted in local contexts.

While the aim of PISA is to allow teachers, policy practitioners and other stakeholders to evaluate and to improve the curriculum system in comparison to those in other countries, the result often also compels education policy makers to put more effort into improving standards applied to national school systems.

Why is Indonesia so behind?

Utomo Dananjaya, an education expert from Paramadina University in Jakarta, said Indonesia was lagging far behind other countries because of its outdated education system.

Utomo said the best way to improve the quality of the education system was to overhaul the bureaucracy within the Education and Culture Ministry. "If possible, change the minister," he added, referring to Mohammad Nuh.

Utomo said the lack of communication among government officials was one of the main obstacles that "has caused the chaos within the education system" in the country, pointing to the highly contentious 2013 school curriculum as one of the most obvious examples.

"The new curriculum should have never happened in the first place," he said. "Rather than changing the curriculum, the government should have changed the communication system and perspective toward the education system among education officials."

The Education Ministry was widely criticized for pushing through a curriculum that sacrifices English and science lessons for religious and civic studies, including a heavy emphasis on patriotism.

Mohammad Abduhzen, the executive director of Paramadina University's Education Reform Center, said Indonesia should focus on nurturing the students' curiosity, encouraging them to express their opinions and motivating them in the pursuit of knowledge.

Abduhzen cautioned that students should not be pressured into securing high scores in the national examinations by requiring them memorize the material.

"We must encourage students to use their logic, motivate them to think critically and skeptically, as that is the key to stimulating their reasoning ability," he said.

Budget constraints?

The education sector in Indonesia has been frequently criticized for failing to reform itself despite getting the biggest portion of the state budget. A total of Rp 286.85 trillion ($30.4 billion), or 20 percent of the state budget, has been allocated for education this year.

Abduhzen said that even though the government had allocated a large budget for the education sector since 2009, the money was not used efficiently or on the most important issues. Rampant corruption within the sector was also hampering the country's efforts to reform its failing education system, he said.

He said the government only focused on building infrastructure, while teacher training programs had proved futile. "The president must evaluate the education system and form an audit agency tasked with reviewing the performance of the Education Ministry," he said.

Utomo said Indonesia also needed to improve the quality of its teachers to reform its education standards. He said the Indonesian education system needed a major overhaul if the country was to compete on the international stage.

"The standard of education in the country is one of the most influential factors that will determine the fate of the students when they enter the labor market in the future," Utomo said, adding there must be intensive training for teachers and educators in Indonesia.

Abduhzen echoed the same sentiment. "Teachers should be trained with a whole new constructive approach, as mentioned in the 2005 Education Law, which states the role of the teacher is to be a fully competent learning agent or facilitator for the students," he said.

He said a new curriculum was not the answer. "We are only deceiving ourselves by changing the curriculum, thinking that it might be successful; ultimately it's only a waste of time and money and there is no tangible result," he said.

Responding to the PISA survey, the Education Ministry pledged to do better. "The PISA results confirm that there has been no significant change since the last survey and we cannot let this happen again," Ibnu Hamad, a ministry spokesman, said Thursday. "We will try to answer this challenge by improving the standard and will review the 2013 curriculum."

He noted that most Indonesian students in the PISA test were only able to solve the easiest math problems. "Our students are having problems solving advanced math problems because they haven't received the lessons they were supposed to have," he said.

Ibnu said that despite the criticism, the 2013 curriculum was expected to bring about positive changes. "It was only just implemented, so we won't see the results just yet," he added.

Nationalism in the national curriculum

The controversial new curriculum excludes science, English and social studies courses in favor of Indonesian, nationalism and religious studies. Education Minister Nuh claimed the changes would maintain Indonesia's Human Development Index score, which the United Nations Development Program calculated at 0.629 in 2012, up slightly from 0.617 in 2011.

Nuh noted that per capita income had grown from $1,177 in 2004 to $3,592 in 2012, and that it is predicted to stand at $5,000 by 2014, which will categorize Indonesia as a middle-income country.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has called for a consistent annual increase in the education budget to improve access to and quality of education. Yudhoyono said the extension was aimed at ensuring 97 percent of Indonesians aged between 16 to 18 would have a high school qualification by 2020.

He vowed to continue improving the quality of Indonesia's education services by improving teachers' skills through certification programs and the implementation of the new curriculum.

The Education Ministry also pledged to train 1.7 million teachers ahead of the implementation of the new curriculum at more schools nationwide next year.

The government says it will increase next year's education budget by 7.5 percent to Rp 371.2 trillion in a bid to improve the quality of education and ensure an even distribution of services across the nation.

The additional funds will be concentrated on developing the new curriculum introduced this year, and on the ministry's drive for universal secondary education. Under the new program, compulsory participation will be extended from nine years to 12 years of schooling.