TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The huge education budget 20 percent of the total state budget demands a significant improvement in the quality of the national education system, something that Indonesians have been yearning for years. Now, it is up to Education and Culture Minister Anies Baswedan to respond to those demands.

The first step that Anies has started is publicizing all data on public education. The Education Balance Sheet publication contains information that until recently was not available to the public, such as the number of students in schools, the proportion of students to teachers, the number of damaged and broken-down schools, the quality of teachers based on teacher competence evaluations, the different education budgets between national and regional budgets, the budget allocation per student and the number of accredited schools.

One encouraging development is how provinces can now compare their budgets with those of others, as published in the Education Balance Sheet. For example, the percentage allocated to education in Jakarta's provincial budget is the highest, at 18.1 percent, while the lowest is in Papua, with only 0.84 percent of its provincial budget. Yet, the place with the largest number of heavily damaged classrooms more than 1,200 is also Jakarta. "We only reveal the data. Everyone can now see it online for themselves," said Anies.

Last Tuesday, Anies, 46, spoke to Tempo journalists Budi Setyarso and Tito Sianipar in his office. Anies wore his Javanese traditional costume of a sarong, shirt and a blangkon cap on his head. It is a requirement he has asked of all employees at his ministry to wear during the first, third and fifth Tuesdays of every month: the traditional costume from their respective areas around the archipelago. "This is to instill our sense of being Indonesian," said Anies. He shared his views on a broad range of subjects, including the quality of teachers, the fate of part-time teachers, the text book 'mafia' and the need for a special budget to translate Indonesian literary works into foreign languages.

What was your aim in publishing the Education Balance Sheet?

The data were there, but they were kept in a computer. Today, I use the data to push for the growth of the educational ecosystem. The provincial education council, teachers, parents and even provincial and local governments can now use this data. The oxygen of the educational ecosystem is information, which would spur interaction. The book was published last February and it's the first of its kind. We want this date to be a policy changer.

Who came up with the idea?

Since 2011, the law mandated that education should be decentralized to the regions. Out of Rp416 trillion of the state budget's allocation in 2015, Rp264 trillion, or 63 percent of it, was transferred to the provinces. The remaining funds were divided between the three main ministries at the central government: the ministries of education, of religious affairs and of research and higher education. The question is: What have the transferred funds achieved so far? Then I had an idea of creating a balance sheet to reveal how much had been transferred and what the funds were used for. It is not at all judgmental; it's nothing more than opening up the situation. Now, everyone can access our website. You are most welcome to monitor the use of the funds by each of the provincial administrations.

Is there a possibility that the data sent by the regions are incorrect?

The data are updated every semester. These data are not provided by regional governments but straight from schools to the ministry. Each school has direct access to the ministry. They just need to fill out the numbers on the columns, like the number of classes needing repairs, the number of students, teachers and so forth. Then we show the numbers according to the specific regency or province.

What if a school refuses to submit the data?

If they don't provide data, they don't get the BOS (school operational assistance) funding. We will not transfer the funds if they don't submit the data.

What have been the positive results so far?

One good example comes from Gorontalo. They created their own educational balance sheet, according to subdistricts. So it's coming from below. It's just a matter of waiting for the others to do their part. And it will be the communities that will make demands on the schools and on their local governments. So the schools, as well as the education providers, must clarify these issues to their constituents.

They get no reminders to improve themselves?

Actually, they can compare themselves with other provinces. We have not really indexed (the data) in their entirety. We showed this so that the inferior variables can be improved. The governor or the regent should easily see what is lacking and should know what needs to be done.

What should the central government do?

We also have a program to rehabilitate classrooms and schools, including new schools. We will help with that. The challenge is that decentralization has placed authority in the hands of regional governments. Schools should be inventorized by the education unit. In line with President Jokowi's Nawacita philosophy, we will make schools in border areas more in line with good standards. We have sent out 798 teachers to the front lines. This year, the plan is to send 3,500 teachers and next year 3,500 more. Their status will be as government employees working in civilian areas.

After the Education Balance Sheet, what will you do next?

We will invite the first wave of regencies or towns that have shown improvement in their education systems. There will be about 20-25 of them during the first phase. We will select them. We will help them and give them benefits, like teachers training, infrastructure improvements, curriculum adoption and literacy management.

But how can people benefit directly?

We also made an education online window, which integrates the education data. Then there's Sekolah Kita (Our School), in which parents can monitor the quality of their children's school through the website. These are breakthroughs intended to enliven the educational ecosystem because I believe that the most effective monitoring is done by the parents themselves, not the government. There are 350,000 elementary and middle schools. Can you imagine monitoring them all simultaneously?

On another matter, how do you see the welfare of teachers?

The quality of teachers must be raised, both existing ones and candidates. Right now I'm concentrating on candidate-teachers. The acceptance standard will be increased, but I will not just focus on those wanting to join. We are also fostering and training existing ones, teaching them self-improvement. That's because there are quality teachers and those who don't work so well.

What about teachers who don't perform well?

The natural thing to do would be to retire them. Today, we raise the competence of those who can improve through trainings based their needs. But we must be objective. Teachers who are good may not have high competence as a teacher. We shouldn't be in a hurry to rate teachers with low competence levels as bad. It should be stressed that there should be no punitive judgment on written tests. The competence test is to provide a picture, to develop it further. The report cards we distribute are not about grades but about what can be developed by the teachers. Yesterday, for the first time in our nation's history, all the teachers were able to take part in the competency test. That means more than 2.6 million teachers will take the test. The message will be that teachers teach. (*)

Read the full interview in this week's edition of Tempo English Magazine