Acceleration or

Internationalization? A Cost-
Effectiveness-Analysis of
Improving School Quality in
Indonesia
Mohamad Fahmi*, Achmad Maulana, and Arief Anshory Yusuf
Centre of Economics and Development Studies (CEDS)
Universitas Padjadjaran, INDONESIA
Background
This paper is one of the output of the Strengthening Institutions to
Improve Public Expenditure Accountability Project that organized by
the Global Development Network (GDN) in 2009-2013.
Based on the Law of Education 2003, the Government of Indonesia
introduced two programs to improve school quality in Indonesia:
The International Standard Schools and
Acceleration Class Program



Objectives
1. To estimate the impact of the International Standard School
Program and Acceleration Class Programs on School Performance
measured by their average national exam score.
2. To estimate and compare the cost effectiveness of the two different
policies.
International Standard School (ISS)
The Objective: is to encourage the continuing process of
benchmarking of educational quality toward international standard
quality.
The view of ISS:
The quality of teachers and facilities should meet international standard.
Using international languages (mostly in English)
Using communication technologies in teaching
ISS requires significantly higher budget than a local school > the
school may require participation from parents.

The Acceleration Class Program (ACP)
Many studies support that gifted education will increase academic
achievement of high-ability students (e.g., Daurio, 1979, Carter, 1986,
Lynch and Mills, 1990, Parke, 1983, Reis, 1993, Roberts, 1992,
Stoddard and Renzulli, 1983, Delcourt et al., 2007, Steenbergen-Hu
and Moon, 2011, Kulik and Kulik, 1984, Kulik and Kulik, 1992).


The Acceleration Class Program (ACP)
Educational types of accelerative programs (Southern and Jones, 2004)
The Acceleration Class Program (ACP)
There are 3 model of ACP:
1. regular class model with cluster and/or pull out,
2. special class model
3. special school model.
Acceleration program in Indonesian schools is generally a grade-
skipping (Akbar and Hawadi, 2002).
Primary education can be finished in 5 years (instead of 6), while a
secondary school student with a distinction academic ability may
graduate in 2 years (3).
Data and Method
We calculated student performance score from the 3
rd
and 4
th
wave
of Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS) that conducted in 2000 and
2007.
IFLS is an on-going longitudinal survey that the sample is
representative of about 83% of the Indonesian population and
contains over 30,000 individuals living in 13 of the 27 provinces in the
country.
All cost data is provided by the Ministry of National Education.


Data and Method
School performance: measured by national exam scores in two
subjects; Indonesian Language and Mathematics.
Difference in Difference method to estimate the impact of the
programs.
We calculate a cost per student per year as we divide the total cost
both program in a year (2007) by total number of students who
participate in both programs.
We combined student exam score and cost data to estimate their cost
effectiveness and compare them between the two programs.





Data and Method
Data and Method
We use the Cost Effectiveness Ratios (CER) In analyzing the relative
benefit and cost of two programs.
The CER is then defined as

CER=
Effectiveness Measure of Acceleration
Class Program

Effectiveness Measure of International
Standard School Program

Comparison Cost Effectiveness of Two
Programs

Conclusions
International standard school program is the more effective to
increase the math and language score.
However, in term of cost effectiveness the result is ambiguous.
International standard school is more cost effective in increasing
students score in language, while acceleration class is more cost
effective in increasing students score in math.