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A Study of Student Admission by School Zoning System in Indonesia: Problem or

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 A Study of Student Admission by School Zoning
System in Indonesia: Problem or Solution?

FINAL REPORT

A report submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of
Education

Lecturer:
Prof. Hsiu-Mei Tsai
Taiwan Education and Culture Course

By:
Maurish Sofie Rahmi Batita
608745014

Educational Leadership and Management Development

College of Education
National Chung Cheng University
Taiwan
2020
Final Term Paper Teacher: Prof. Hsiu-Mei Tsai
Course: Taiwan Education and Culture

ABSTRACT

The regulation of Ministry Education and Culture marked starts a new policy on admission
students based on the proximity of student's vicinity to the school, called The Zoning System.
The regulation main objective is to offer an equality education, by wiping out the dichotomy
of favorite school perception in Indonesia. Entering its third year, yet its implementation still
faced challenges and problems within the government and society. Lack of public
dissemination and government preparedness hindered its maximum implementation.
Therefore, the distribution of well-evenly education quality and sufficient human-resources
throughout the country is needed.
Keywords: admission student, favorite school, zoning system.

Introduction

Education is without a doubt a fundamental pillar of growth for human beings all around
the world. All of the parents will ensure their children attends the best education they could ever
get, and needless to say, the finest school planning from early childhood until the highest
education. As a result, this belief leads the parents to tend to send their children toward the
acknowledged and recognized schools only. However, all of the schools within a country should
be offering an equal opportunity in education including curriculum, qualified educators, secure
environment, and the most crucial is adequate facilities and infrastructure throughout the country.
The Republic of Indonesia has three ministry department who organize the education
sector, such as following: (i) Ministry of Education and Culture (MoEC), which organizing the
early childhood and secondary education; (ii) Ministry of Religious Affairs, who managing
madrasah schools or mostly known as Islamic Schools; and (iii) Ministry of Research and
Technology, who responsible for higher education and research in technology and science field.
Along to ensure the quality of education in Indonesia, there is a stand-alone agency labeled The
National Accreditation Board for School and Madrasah (Badan Akreditasi Nasional Sekolah dan
Madrasah or BAN-SM) has a mandate for ensuring all the public school meet the national
education standard by its authority. Based on the executive summary published (BAN-SM, 2018),
there are 55.717 schools already granted the accreditation, comprises of elementary, secondary
and high school including the vocational school. Given that more than half of schools in Indonesia
exactly 53.09% already acknowledged “B” accreditation, followed by 19.70% of “A” of certified
school, 22.00% of “C” accreditation and the percentage of 4.40% found out to be not accredited
yet.
The Republic of Indonesia has a student admission system called Penerimaan Peserta
Didik Baru (PPDB), which in English translated as “The Admission of New Students”. One of the
reforms in the education sector by the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture was

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Final Term Paper Teacher: Prof. Hsiu-Mei Tsai
Course: Taiwan Education and Culture

implementing the new policy for student admission. The long-term vision for this new policy as
an effort to offering the equality of education in Indonesia, also ensuring each of the school is
having the equal opportunity to be accepted by the student, regardless the accreditation,
infrastructures, facilities, teacher’s qualification, administrations, and most of all, geographically.
This report addressed the implementation of the new regulation of the student admission system
established by the MoEC in 2017, called “The Zoning System”. Due to its infancy for the society
in Indonesia, the new zoning system leads the involved parties and communities split into pros and
cons.

Problem Statement

Indonesia society acknowledged a dichotomy perception regarding categorizing schools

for their children, which are “Favorite School” and just an “Ordinary School”. This stigma already
propagated for a long time ago and much bring burden to parents whenever they want to send their
children to another higher-level of school. Muhadjir Effendy, former Indonesia Minister of
Education and Culture felt uneasy with this stigma of Favorite School, it made another public
school, which also funded by the government as less-qualified than those popular schools
(“Sekolah Favorit”, 2018). These favorite schools normally consist of “A” or “B” accredited public
schools, all of the smart students are enrolled there, and qualified teachers and school principals
secure their position because commonly favorite schools can maintain good relations with the
officials in the local education agency. World Bank (2016) mentioned the Indonesian Favorite
Schools is where there is a high demand for student places because it attracts students from a more
affluent background than other public schools. Indeed, most of the parents have this willingness
to send their children to the best-desired schools, regardless of what is the real condition and
situation of that favorite school. Martono (2013) mentions parents will have a huge rightfully proud
moment if their children accepted in favorite schools, yet it brings prestige and high dignity for
both parents and teachers who teach inside the favorite schools.
Due to the belief of favorite school assumption, parents will sacrifice everything they have
so their children enrolled in those schools. However, this belief leads parents to plan various
strategies, including “School Shopping” (Rahmad & Tarahita, 2018) also “Buying Seats” (Meg,
2018). Those two terms have the same meaning for revealing the crummy action conducted by
parents who able to pay more and giving the bribe to the principal or other high positioned official,
thus ensuring their children will be accepted in the favorite schools. Frequently, only those who
come from well-off families will do such things, therefore it contributes a culture within Indonesia
society that only those children who are coming from middle-upper families will be enrolled in
good state public schools, whereas the children from less-fortunate families have to enroll in low-
quality public schools, or private schools which are expensive neither could have a chance could
not continue to schools due to social-economic status. Supported by Yayan (2018) the parents
believe this favorite school will take their children to another high-quality level of education and
ensuring their children will be connected to a better professional career for their future.

Page 3 of 8
Final Term Paper Teacher: Prof. Hsiu-Mei Tsai
Course: Taiwan Education and Culture

Literature Review

Zoning System

According to PISA (2009, as cited in Põder, Lauri & Veski, 2016), there are three things
may prioritize school-level choice policy regarding the admission of prospective students. Such as
following: (1) students walking distance to school, including zoning or catchment area policies;
(2) student's previous performance, including academic record or aptitude test; and (3) students
with siblings in the same school. Given to know that zoning or geographically criterion come in
the first place. Many other countries such as Japan, Finland, The Republic of Korea, The US and
Australia already implemented the zoning student enrollment system long way before Indonesia.
The zoning system of education implemented in a country as a strategy to improve service and
equalization of education quality throughout the country, is also an attempt to minimizing the gap
and competition between the educational institutions throughout the country (Martitah, 2019).
Generally, the policy of zoning admission system regulated the student who lives closer to the
school is more entitled to be accepted than students with achievement or academic, thus distance
or the radius between student's vicinity to school matter in the zoning policy. The advantages of
this system are the equalization of education, time savings for students due to the close school,
more efficient transportation costs, healthier students, and reduction of congestion, especially for
big cities.

Regulation of Ministry of Education and Culture

The new policy of Zoning System of student admission in Indonesia regulated under the
Regulation of Ministry of Education and Culture Number 14 the Year 2018. In chapter II, clause
2, describes the objective of the new student admission to be running as objective, transparent,
accountable, non-discriminative and fair as an effort improving educational service access in
Indonesia. This regulation has control over the student admission system from elementary, junior-
high-school and senior secondary students, including vocational schools.
The Ministerial Decree stipulates that there are three student admission methods which are
the zoning system, achievement or performance and transfer of parents or guardians. The scope
for each method is varied. Total of 90% for the zoning system allocated for the residents who live
proximity from their house to the schools. Given a 5% seat for the student who has achievement
or wants to use their national standardized examination score and lives outside of the zone. Another
5% would be given to students who its parent got transferred outside of their domicile due to work
or job, or would be given to natural disaster victims. Therefore, this new policy indeed gives
immense priority to students to be enrolled in a school which closes to their vicinity. In addition,
the regulation also embraces children who are coming from less-advantage families, children, with
special needs or disabilities and teacher’s children to get prioritized accepted.
The regulation also specifies the admission with further indicators with details. In the
elementary school system prioritized the age and distance of the residence with school, but if
students are having the same distance, the system will prioritize the students who register earlier.

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Final Term Paper Teacher: Prof. Hsiu-Mei Tsai
Course: Taiwan Education and Culture

The elementary schools will no longer have the right to carry out the tests for the student applicants.
In junior-high-schools and senior-secondary school tend to consider the radius between residence
and school, the score of national examination score and counted achievement or other attainments
lastly. Nevertheless, the vocational schools have the authority to carry out the aptitude or talent
qualification examination for the students regarding the majors they choose.

Findings

Implementation of Regulation

Based on the interview with Muhadjir Effendy ("Minister of Education", 2019) the zone-
based admission system already running its third year since 2016. Yet in three years, problems
always arise during the implementation of the zone-based system. For instance, some zones have
less-capacity schools than the student population, even there were also blank spots where areas
with no school at all, due to the regions not fully complied to mapping the zone when the regulation
implemented. Initially, the government was relaxed during the beginning implementation, because
still allowed the schools to use the national exam scores and local government could determine the
percentage and quota for each category. Then, recently in 2018, the government began to tighten
a bit and cases of enrollment using fake poverty certificates emerged. Another problem would be
some regions implement deviated discretion too far from the ministerial regulation even making
their irregular derivate regulations. Therefore, it created confusion within the parents and
community. Consider this policy was still brand-new, hence many parents were felt unfamiliar.

Phenomenon and Problems

Based on the media releases could be known that the implementation of the zoning
admission system remains to draw challenges for government and some problems emerged from
the community who does not fully understand the regulation. This section will describe some of
the phenomenon and problems emerged during and later of the implementation of zoning
admission system.
First, parents were puzzled regarding the practice of zoning policy implementation. The
enrollment process employs an online system, therefore parents who are lack technology skills
encountered difficulties to register their children into the system. Hence, resulted parents still went
directly to their desired school but the case is they could register their children from the house if
they have the internet connection (Bakar, Supriyati and Hanafi, 2019). Furthermore, there is an
assumption due to the dissemination of the zoning policy was indeed minimal thus resulted parents
were not properly familiarized with whether some parents pretend not to be aware of the regulation
in hopes of getting what they wanted ("Minister of Education", 2019).
Second, the new regulation caused parents to conduct some strategy fraudulently in order
ensuring their children will be accepted. Rahmad and Tarahita (2018) declare parents even would
register their children into other families or their relatives whose house lives near the public
schools. Therefore, switch family cards and change the children’s domicile indeed occurred.

Page 5 of 8
Final Term Paper Teacher: Prof. Hsiu-Mei Tsai
Course: Taiwan Education and Culture

Besides, as the author mention earlier some parents would fake poverty certificate in hopes of
getting prioritized as less-fortunate families.
Third, the fact that the dichotomy of favorite schools remains to affect both parents and
students. Students with high-achieving grades would be having less motivation to go to developing
quality school in their zone and tend to feel inferior due to fails enrolled in their desired school.
Other cases would be the student who lives in dense population will have less-effort regarding
their admission process, because they could pick whatever public schools surround them. From
the parent’s perspective, they would feel remorse and anguish toward the government if their
children could not be accepted to their desired schools.
Fourth, although private schools not obliged to adopt the zoning system, yet the regulation
also brings impact to them as well. Private schools located in dense populations will be lost a great
number of prospective students, due to those prospective students already enrolled in public
schools. For high-quality and recognized private school will having a great number of high-
achieving students who failed to be enrolled in their desired school because they would prefer
admitted to good private schools rather than the middle-low quality public school in their zone.

Discussion
Considering the challenges and problems pulled out by the implementation of zoning
system admission, therefore evaluations from every level parties and continuous efforts need to be
addressed toward better student admission system. Most of all, well-distributed education quality
endeavors throughout the country. This notion seems realistic because Muhadjir already
highlighted that the main objective of the zoning system was to serve as a foundation to create
even distribution of quality. Begin with the proposed teacher redistribution program, which would
fill in the disparity gaps in all regions regarding the number of tenured teachers and honorary
teachers.
Generally speaking, the zoning system actually a good approach for equality, along with
the fact that as a developing country, Indonesia society has to welcome every effort and
opportunity from the government (Meg, 2018). It is an effort to eliminate the dichotomy perception
of the favorite school which already deeply planted in the Indonesia community. However, the
implementation would not be an instant transformation. This policy needs to be reviewed annually
and increasing the awareness within the society, including teachers, parents, schools, and students
must be addressed. This implementation could go in phase eventually.
The initial concept of enrollment using other criteria than the national examination score,
which is the radius and proximity to the school needs to be appreciated. The idea of using exam
results as the sole criteria for student enrollment created a contradiction tendency among society
to put all the students in order based on their grades only. Besides, if the previous regulation still
implemented, it is not ideal when only several schools which are the favorite schools only gain the
student’s achievement over and over again. Whereas another school will remain to run behind the
favorite school.
However, there is a sudden change of student composition aftermath the implementation

Page 6 of 8
Final Term Paper Teacher: Prof. Hsiu-Mei Tsai
Course: Taiwan Education and Culture

of a zoning system. Previously, the classroom was homogenous conditioned, due to the
composition of class consist of students at the same level. The outstanding students will gather in
the favorite labeled school, likewise, the slow learner and mediocre student were enrolled in the
“ordinary” public school. Therefore, this is the challenge for teachers in teaching a heterogeneous
classroom. The high-achieving students need teachers to provide them with enrichment so they
would remain motivated to continually improve their aptitude. While the low-achieving students
need teachers to help them in a better understanding of the lesson.

Conclusion
Entering its third year, the implementation of zoning student admission still faced few
problems in practice, such as lack of public dissemination, lack of local government's preparedness
in terms of determining the zone, and various comprehension of society, hence leads to un-optimal
application. Besides, the dichotomy perception of favorite schools remains to affect parents and
students in terms of choosing the school. Therefore, the distribution of well-evenly education
quality and sufficient human-resources throughout the country is needed. The extensive
dissemination as an effort to profound introducing the regulation and policy for society also need
to be addressed, in hopes of getting a coherent perspective between society and the government.
Lastly, solid coordination between the MoEC and local governments is key to the successful
implementation of the school zoning policy, as enforcing the equal regulation regardless of the
regions and authority for each level.

References

BAN-SM. (2018). Ringkasan Eksekutif: Capaian dan Analisis Pemenuhan Standar Nasional
Pendidikan (Snp) Hasil Akreditasi Sekolah dan Madrasah Tahun 2018. Badan Akreditasi
Nasional Sekolah/Madrasah. Retrieved from
https://bansm.kemdikbud.go.id/unduh/kategori/ringkasan-eksekutif

Bakar, K. A. A., Supriyati, Y., & Hanafi, I. (2019). The Evaluation of Admission Student Policy
based on Zoning System for Acceleration Education Quality in Indonesia. Journal of
Management Info, 6(2), 19–24. https://doi.org/10.31580/jmi.v6i2.883

Martitah. (2019). Zoning System of Education as a Strategy for Equalizing Education Quality in
the Disruptive Era (Legal Aspect Review), 335 (ICESSHum), 32–36.
https://doi.org/10.2991/icesshum-19.2019.6

Martono, Nanang. (2013, July 4). Mitos Sekolah Favorit. Opini Republika. Retrieved from
http://nanang-martono.blog.unsoed.ac.id/?attachment_id=991

Meg, Imelda. (2018, September 3). Indonesian New Zoning School Admission System: Education
Equality for Student’s Less Effort. Retrieved from
https://medium.com/@Bellaimelda/indonesian-new-zoning-school-admission-system-
education-equality-for-students-less-effort-423ffaed27fd

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 Final Term Paper Teacher: Prof. Hsiu-Mei Tsai
Course: Taiwan Education and Culture

Ministry of Education and Culture. (2018). Regulation of Ministry of Education

and Culture Number 14 Tahun 2018 about The New Admission
Student, Jakarta.

Minister of Education and Culture: No More Favorite Schools. (2019, July 25). Tempo.co.
Retrieved from https://en.tempo.co/read/1228553/minister-of-education-and-culture-no-
more-favorite-schools

Põder, K., Lauri, T., & Veski, A. (2017). Does School Admission by Zoning Affect Educational
Inequality? A Study of Family Background Effect in Estonia, Finland, and Sweden.
Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 61(6), 668–688.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00313831.2016.1173094

Rakhmat, M.Z. Tarahita, Dikanaya. (2018, July 25). Indonesia Seeks to Democratize its Schools.
Asia Sentinel. Retrieved from https://www.asiasentinel.com/society/indonesia-democratize-
schools/

Sekolah Favorit Jadi Incaran Orang Tua. (2018, March 5). Radar Sidoarjo, p.6. Retrieved from
http://www.radarsby.com/special/pendidikan/26.pdf

Yahya, Kresnayana. (2018, March 5). Sekolah Negeri Bukan Segalanya. Radar Sidoarjo. Retrieved
from http://www.radarsby.com/special/pendidikan/26.pdf

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