Country and hazard overview
CASE STUDY
A decentralised approach to
school construction
SECTION II: OVERVIEW
Country: Indonesia
Organisation: Ministry of Education, Ministry of
Public Works, Ministry of Finance, World Bank
Hazards: Earthquakes, floods, landslides, high
winds, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis
Summary: From 1999 Indonesia began
decentralising almost all sectors of its government.
By giving power to local authorities, it began to
address the complex geography, cultural diversity
and multiple hazards to which it is exposed. The
Ministry of Education and Culture gave funding
and decision-making power directly to school
management and committees, even tasking them
with managing school construction. Although
the government is still struggling to provide an
appropriate funding mechanism and enough
technical support, many school communities
have already constructed new school buildings or
rehabilitated existing buildings in this decentralised
political environment.
THAI.
CAM.
Medan
Pontianak
Sorong
Jakarta
INDONESIA
AUSTRALIA
In Indonesia, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis,
floods, droughts and landslides are prevalent. Since
2000, the country has experienced three earthquakes
with a magnitude greater than 8.0. Tectonic movements
also make 76 of Indonesia’s 150 volcanoes highly active
and Indonesia’s history includes a series of disastrous
eruptions that have killed hundreds of thousands of people
and affected global weather patterns. Flooding is also a
perennial issue. These diverse and prevalent hazards place
about 75 percent of Indonesian schools at risk to natural
hazards.
School construction:
From centralised to a
community-based approach
Around 60 percent of Indonesian schools were constructed
in the 1970s and 1980s in a massive Presidential Instruction
(Inpres) Program funded in full by the government.
Understanding of the building codes and hazards was
low and corruption was rampant, leading to poor site
selection and construction quality. Nevertheless, access to
basic education significantly improved and enrolment was
boosted.
Recognising the monumental challenge of building,
operating, maintaining, repairing and retrofitting schools in
various states of disrepair across thousands of islands, the
government dece ntralised education management down
to the community level in 1999. One year later, the central
government established a block grant called the School
Operational Fund with support from the World Bank, allowing
school management and committees to directly receive and
manage funding provided by the national government.
To actually give power to the school management
committee, the Ministry of Education and Culture (MoEC)
and the Ministry of Finance gave each community the
responsibility to manage the School Operational Fund.
As a block grant, the funding was flexible. It allowed the
committee to spend money as they saw fit. It was also
allocated based on the number of students – if enrolment
increased, the funds to that school would increase.
The school management committee was flexible and
consisted of a principal, treasurer and small group of
democratically elected community members. These
community members typically came from the immediate
area but could be drawn from surrounding neighbourhoods
or elected for special purposes. This system, in conjunction
with the block grant, was intended to allow the school
committee to operate as the school implementing unit.
Addressing school
vulnerability to hazards
After learning that 75 percent of 258,000 schools in
Indonesia are in disaster risk areas, the government
launched programs specifically to increase technical
assistance for disaster risk-reduction education. They also
adopted regulations to increase the hazard-resistance of
school infrastructure.
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