Telly Nathalia, Jakarta – The Religious Affairs Ministry published its 2019 religious tolerance index on Wednesday, showing an improvement in the score from 70.9 last year to 73.83 today on a scale of 0 to 100.

"The number has improved since last year but it's still lower than the 75.36 in 2015," Religious Affairs Minister Fachrul Razi said in Jakarta on Wednesday.

Since the index score has been above 70 in the past five years, Indonesia should be considered as a country with high religious tolerance.

The highest religious tolerance index was recorded in West Papua this year with 81.2 percent and the lowest in Aceh with 60.2, lower than the national index.

The study was conducted in-house by the Religious Affairs Ministry. "We measured three things for the index: tolerance, equality and cooperation between followers of different religions," Fachrul said.

The scores for those three index measures were 72.37 for tolerance, 73.72 for equality and 75.40 for cooperation.

"Religious tolerance has been good in our country in the past five years. We only need to find out which factors can diminish it and try to improve on them," the former army general said.

The index findings will be used by the ministry to produce policy briefs and recommendations for government programs, including by other ministers and government institutions.

The following is the complete religious tolerance index, arranged by province from high to low:

1. West Papua: 82.1
2. East Nusa Tenggara: 81.1
3. Bali: 80.1
4. North Sulawesi: 79.9
5. Maluku: 79.4
6. Papua: 79.0
7. North Kalimantan: 78.0
8. Central Kalimantan: 77.8
9. West Kalimantan: 76.7
10. North Sumatra: 76.3
11. South Sulawesi: 75.7
12. Central Sulawesi: 75.0
13. Central Java: 74.6
14. Special Region of Yogyakarta: 74.2
15. West Sulawesi: 74.1
16. Southeast Sulawesi: 73.9
17. East Java: 73.7
18. East Kalimantan: 73.6
19. Gorontalo: 73.2
20. Bangka Belitung Islands: 73.1
21. Lampung: 73.1
22. Riau Islands: 72.8
23. North Maluku: 72.7
24. South Kalimantan: 72.5
25. South Sumatra: 72.4
26. Bengkulu: 71.8
27. Jakarta: 71.3
28. Jambi: 70.7
29. West Nusa Tenggara: 70.4
30. Riau: 69.3
31. Banten: 68.9
32. West Java: 68.5
33. West Sumatra: 64.4
34. Aceh: 60.2

Source: https://jakartaglobe.id/news/religious-tolerance-in-indonesia-high-but-not-in-aceh-ministry