JAKARTA/DELHI/BEIJING: Indonesia’s classrooms may be full, but the quality of education is falling short of the mark.

The country has 12 years of compulsory education, with enrolment rates at almost 100 per cent up to the age of 12. At secondary school, the pupil-teacher ratio is around 15:1, while the number of vocational schools has increased.

Yet, Indonesia ranked 69th out of 81 countries and economies in the 2022 Programme for International Student Assessment, which measures the reading, mathematics and science skills of 15-year-olds round the world.

“The World Bank refers to us as functionally illiterate,” said Indra Charismiadji, an education policy analyst. “Our young generation can’t learn anything because … they don’t understand what they’re reading.”

Indra, who has over two decades’ experience in education in Indonesia, saw the writing on the wall back in 2008: According to his research then, 30 per cent of high school English teachers in Jakarta could not speak the language.

And it is not just English. In 2015, when 1.6 million Indonesian teachers took a nationwide competency test, more than 80 per cent across all subjects and grade levels did not meet the minimum standards.

Indra thinks poor pay is a key factor. According to employment website Jobstreet, teachers are paid around 2.9 million rupiah to 5.5 million rupiah (US$180 to US$340) per month — co...