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Unraveling the myth of madrasah formal education quality in Indonesia: a labor quality approach

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Abstract

Education is essential for developing labor in Indonesia. One type of formal education is madrasah education that has been historically significant in Indonesia which adds depth in Islamic subjects in addition to basic subjects. These graduates may become important as the Sharia industry continues to boom in Indonesia. However, madrasah education has shown weak labor market performances compared to general education, in terms of wages and unemployment. This may stem from a weak learning process in madrasahs which is against the 4th Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) about equitable education. With limited studies on madrasah education performance in the labor market, using 2014 Indonesia Family Life Survey, we find: (1) madrasah education choice is influenced by parent’s education and appeals to low-income families, (2) madrasah graduates have lower probability of working compared to general education graduates, (3) return of madrasah education is lower compared to general education. Therefore, policies should improve madrasah education through improvement of teachers and institution quality, support and funding for private madrasahs, and supporting Madrasah Kejuruan.

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Source: IFLS, Author’s Calculation

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Availability of data and material

All raw data of IFLS are available at https://www.rand.org/well-being/social-and-behavioral-policy/data/FLS/IFLS/access.html.

Code availability

Code is available by request.

Notes

  1. Madrasah Ibtidaiyah (Ibtidaiyah meaning “beginning” in Arabic) is the madrasah education equivalent to elementary/primary school. The duration of schooling is 6 years.

  2. Madrasah Tsanawiyah (Tsanawiyah meaning “second” in Arabic) is the madrasah education equivalent to junior high/lower secondary school. The duration of schooling is 3 years.

  3. Madrasah Aliyah (Aliyah meaning “high” in Arabic) is the madrasah education equivalent to senior high/upper secondary school. Similar to general education, madrasah Aliyah has two forms, non-vocational (Madrasah Aliyah) and vocational (Madrasah Aliyah Kejuruan). The duration of schooling is 3 years.

  4. Definition of employment and unemployment are based on the Indonesian Central Statistics Agency.

  5. We have also used the Heckman two-step regression to minimize the possibility of selection bias of censored wage data if using only the OLS method (Comola & de Mello, 2013). However, after running the Heckman model, we find that the Inverse Mills ratio (which significance indicates selection bias if using OLS method) was found not significant (indicating Heckman results are inefficient compared to OLS). Thus, we only use the OLS method to analyze wages (Heckman regression results can be seen in Appendix 3).

  6. This is calculated by adding the coefficient of years of schooling (7.05%) with the coefficient of years of schooling interacted with madrasah dummy (–6.89%).

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Acknowledgements

The writer is grateful for the help and advice by Jossy Prananta Moeis Ph.D., Askar Muhammad S.E., and Qisha Quarina Ph.D. for constructive advice and discussion to complete the manuscript. The writer would also like to thank Prof. Mohamad Ikhsan for giving constructive advice and motivation on the early development of the manuscript.

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Economic and Social Research, Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitas Indonesia, DKI Jakarta, Indonesia

    Faizal Rahmanto Moeis

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  1. Faizal Rahmanto Moeis
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Correspondence to Faizal Rahmanto Moeis.

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Appendices

Appendix 1: 2013 curriculum of general elementary, junior high, senior high school (in credit hour per week)

Subjects

Elementary

Junior High

General Senior High

Vocational Senior High

Science

Social

Language

Religion and Character Studies

4

3

3

3

3

3

Pancasila and Civic Studies

5

3

2

2

2

2

Indonesian Language

7

6

4

4

4

4

Mathematics

6

5

4

4

4

4

Science

3

5

16

–

–

–

Social Studies

3

4

–

16

–

–

English Language

–

4

2

2

2

2

Indonesia History

–

–

2

2

2

2

Language and Culture Specialization

–

–

–

–

16

–

Arts, Culture, and Crafts

5

–

–

–

–

–

Sports and Health

4

3

3

3

3

3

Arts and Culture

–

3

2

2

2

2

Crafts

–

2

2

2

2

2

Cross Studies/Deepening

–

–

4

4

4

–

Vocational/Academic Specializationa

–

–

–

–

–

24

Credit Hour Allocation Per Week

36

38

44

44

44

48

  1. Source: Ministry of Education and Culture (2013)
  2. The hours allocated follow the last grade in each level education. In other grades, the hours allocated may vary
  3. aThe vocational school specialization courses may vary between each vocational specialization

Appendix 2: Descriptive statistics Madrasah choice variables

Variable

Obs

Mean

Std. Dev

Min

Max

Father's Years of Schooling (Years)

15,830

3.44

4.27

0

22

Mother's Years of Schooling (Years)

15,830

2.55

3.69

0

18

Father Last Education Madrasah (1 = Madrasah; 0 = Others)

15,830

0.01

0.11

0

1

Mother Last Education Madrasah (1 = Madrasah; 0 = Others)

15,830

0.02

0.12

0

1

Expenditure Per Capita (Million Rupiah)

15,830

1.01

0.81

0.07

22.76

Household Size (People)

15,830

4.51

1.79

2

16

Household Assets (Billion Rupiah)

15,830

0.16

0.26

0

3.71

Math Cognitive Raw Score (Score)

15,830

1.46

1.43

0

5

Logic Cognitive Raw Score (Score)

15,830

4.65

2.27

0

8

  1. Source: IFLS, Author’s Calculation

Appendix 3: Heckman regression results

Variables

Model 1

Model 2

OLS

OLS

LnWage

LnWage

Experience

0.181***

0.180***

 

(0.0107)

(0.0107)

Experience Square

−0.00193***

−0.00193***

 

(0.000125)

(0.000125)

Years of Schooling

0.0705***

0.0708***

 

(0.00527)

(0.00527)

Years of Schooling*Madrasah

−0.0689**

 
 

(0.0333)

 

Madrasah

0.524*

 
 

(0.311)

 

Madrasah Ibtidaiyah

 

0.223

  

(0.196)

Madrasah Tsanawiyah

 

0.0444

  

(0.120)

Madrasah Aliyah

 

−0.402***

  

(0.149)

Vocational

0.0205

0.0204

 

(0.0570)

(0.0570)

Sex

0.623***

0.624***

 

(0.0402)

(0.0402)

Urban

0.110***

0.110***

 

(0.0406)

(0.0406)

Java

−0.193***

−0.195***

 

(0.0376)

(0.0376)

Primary Sector

−0.283***

−0.283***

 

(0.0474)

(0.0474)

Secondary Sector

0.0749*

0.0746*

 

(0.0451)

(0.0451)

Formal Sector

0.442***

0.441***

 

(0.0433)

(0.0433)

Training

0.508***

0.510***

 

(0.0509)

(0.0509)

Correction Factor

  

Predicted Probability of Education Choice

−5.212***

−5.254***

(0.647)

(0.644)

Lambda (Inverse Mills

0.000825

−0.00236

Ratio)

(0.0242)

(0.0258)

Constant

11.19***

11.20***

 

(0.237)

(0.237)

Observations

14,052

14,052

R 2

0.124

0.124

  1. Source: IFLS, Author’s Estimation
  2. Robust standard errors in parentheses, ***p < 0.01; **p < 0.05; *p < 0.1

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Moeis, F.R. Unraveling the myth of madrasah formal education quality in Indonesia: a labor quality approach. Educ Res Policy Prac 21, 177–200 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10671-021-09298-6

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