Revising the National Education System Law: Time for Asymmetric Decentralisation
The revision of Law Number 20 of 2003 on the National Education System must not stop at institutional arrangements or the division of authority between central and regional governments. It must address a more fundamental question: how to accelerate the improvement of education quality evenly across Indonesia.
Discussions on education decentralisation have often been trapped in questions of who holds authority. Yet, the more important question is who must act when education quality declines. For students, administrative boundaries are irrelevant; what matters is the quality of teaching, school leadership, a conducive learning environment, and access to quality learning opportunities.
More than two decades of regional autonomy have expanded local governments’ room to innovate in education management. Many regions have introduced policies tailored to their communities’ needs. However, the pace of improvement has been uneven. Disparities in education quality remain a persistent challenge, driven by differences in fiscal capacity, human resource quality, and geographical conditions.
This situation cannot be accepted as an inevitable consequence of decentralisation. The right to quality education is a constitutional guarantee for every citizen. Therefore, education quality is a national interest that must be safeguarded collectively. When a region’s learning outcomes decline or stagnate over time, the state cannot remain a passive observer.
The proposed revision should introduce a paradigm of asymmetric decentralisation based on quality. This concept rests on a simple principle: the form of state support is determined not solely by the division of authority, but by the condition of education quality in each region. What must be national is not only the standard, but also the commitment to quality.
Under this model, regions that demonstrate strong performance will continue to enjoy broad autonomy to innovate, with the central government focusing on standardisation, guidance, and disseminating best practices. Conversely, regions with persistently low or stagnating quality indicators will receive more intensive support through affirmative policies. Such interventions may include strengthening teacher competencies, mentoring school principals, reinforcing quality assurance systems, deploying expert personnel, providing financial affirmations, and leveraging learning technology. The basis for action is not political consideration or administrative authority, but objective, transparent, and accountable quality indicators.
Thus, the central government’s presence is not to seize authority from regional governments, but to accelerate the strengthening of regional capacity so they can sustainably improve their education quality. This concept is built on three principles: one standard, meaning every Indonesian child is entitled to education services meeting the National Education Standards; diverse interventions, where the form of state support is tailored to each region’s challenges and quality achievements; and one responsibility, where central and regional governments share the duty to ensure continuous improvement in education quality.
With this approach, what is asymmetric is not regional authority, but the level of state support to accelerate quality improvement. The revision of the National Education System Law must provide a more progressive legal foundation, enabling the central government to conduct limited, proportional, data-based interventions in collaboration with regional governments when quality indicators signal the need for acceleration. This spirit aligns with modern governance practices, where an effective government is not one that merely distributes authority, but one that ensures every child, in any part of the country, receives the best possible education.