The Asian Trends Monitoring Bulletin is a project

sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation, New

York and the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy,

National University of Singapore. The Lee Kuan Yew

School of Public Policy gratefully acknowledges the

financial assistance of the Rockefeller Foundation.

The Asian Trends Monitoring Bulletin focuses on

the analysis of pro-poor projects and innovative

approaches that will contribute to alleviate poverty.

The emphasis is put on identifying major trends

for the poor in rural and urban areas, highlighting

sustainable and scalable concepts, and analysing

how these could impact the future of Asia’s well-

being and future development.

The Asian Trends Monitoring Bulletin are designed

to encourage dialogue and debate about critical

issues that affect Asia’s ability to reduce poverty and

increase awareness of the implications for pro-poor

policy and policy development.

Disclaimer

The opinions expressed in the Asian Trends Monitoring

Bulletin are those of the analysts and do not

necessarily reflect those of the sponsor organisations.

Frequency

The Asian Trends Monitoring Bulletin will be produced

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http://www.asiantrendsmonitoring.com/downloads

Principal Investigators

Darryl S.L Jarvis

Phua Kai Hong

T S Gopi Rethinaraj

Research Associates

Johannes Loh

Taufik Indrakesuma

Nicola Pocock

Production

Chris Koh, Manager, Production & Research

Dissemination

Michael Agung Pradhana, Layout & Design

Image credits, with thanks

All images in this issue were taken by the ATM team

during their field visits to Jakarta, Manila, Hanoi, and

Vientiane in 2012

Permission is granted to use portions of this work

copyrighted by the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public

Policy. Please follow the suggested citation:

When citing individual articles

Indrakesuma, T., & Loh, J. (2013). Educating the poor:

past, present, future. In Asian Trends Monitoring

Bulletin (2013), Bulletin 20: Educating the Urban

Poor (pp. 6-7). Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy,

Singapore.

When citing the entire bulletinAsian Trends

Monitoring Bulletin (2013), Bulletin 20: Educating the

Urban Poor (pp. 6-7). Lee Kuan Yew School of Public

Policy, Singapore.

When citing our survey data

Asian Trends Monitoring (2012). A dataset on urban

poverty and service provision. Lee Kuan Yew School

of Public Policy, National University of Singapore.

Please acknowledge the source and email a copy of

the book, periodical or electronic document in which

the material appears to chris.k@nus.edu.sg or send to

Chris Koh

Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy

469C Bukit Timah Toad

Singapore 259772

The ATM Urban Poverty Series Download all previous ATM Bulletins from our website: www.asiantrendsmonitoring.com

Jakarta's Poor Manila's Poor Empowering Hanoi's Poor Vientiane - Poor But Different

3

Education is a vital tool for breaking the vicious cycle of poverty. Indeed, it

is often claimed that educated children will be able to earn more money in

the long run, eventually lifting the entire family out of poverty. This, in turn,

leads to the future generations being better educated and able to enhance

the financial well-being of families and communities.

However, reality is rarely that simple. A 2006 OECD reporti on education

notes that economic and social disadvantages are equally important ele-

ments to consider as they can severely hamper the educational experience

of learners. While social disadvantages influence test scores and educa-

tional achievements in the developed world, in the developing countries of

Southeast Asia, economic and social disadvantages are severe impediments

to even accessing and attending school.

Despite efforts by nearly all governments across Southeast Asia to pro-

vide access to free education until secondary level, there remain several

stumbling blocks that lead to low enrollment rates and unsatisfactory edu-

cational outcomes. For example, there are often additional costs beyond

the tuition expenses, including the opportunity cost of foregone income

from the child working to support a parents business or engage in inde-

pendent economic activity. Poor service delivery represents another prob-

lem, where subsidies and other forms of assistance do not reach the poorest

households.

In order to fill the provision gap left by the government, non-govern-

mental organizations have been active in creating schools for the poor.

Numerous organizations have developed alternative models of education

provision, adapting their schools to the unique circumstances of poor com-

munities. Some organizations find ways to accommodate their students’

work schedules, while others modify the curriculum to include a heavier

vocational component. In this issue of the ATM we take an in-depth look at

alternative future scenarios that might arise from the adoption of conven-

tional and alternative models in educating poor communities.

This issue also highlights the unique experiences of people and organiza-

tions we engaged with in researching educational provision and the experi-

ence of poor communities. Case studies in the bulletin include:

• An NGO that provides several schools for a large slum area;

• A school that works together with a microfinance institution to teach

children from poor families the value of savings; and

• Schools built for trash-picker communities that live in landfills.

The data and case studies that are used in this bulletin are the result of

primary data collection and field research. This year’s research on urban

poverty entailed travelling to four of Southeast Asia’s major cities: Jakarta,

Manila, Hanoi, and Vientiane. In this issue, we compare the major challenges

faced by officials in these four cities in the field of education as well as their

innovative solutions.

We invite you to share the ATM Bulletin with colleagues interested in pro-

poor issues in Southeast Asia. The Bulletin is also available for download at

www.asiantrendsmonitoring.com/download, where you can subscribe

to future issues. We encourage you to regularly visit our website for more

updates and recent video uploads in our blog. Thank you again for support-

ing the ATM Bulletin, and as always, we gladly welcome your feedback.

Suggested citation

When citing individual articles

• Indrakesuma, T., & Loh, J. (2013). Educating the poor: past,

present, future. In Asian Trends Monitoring Bulletin (2013),

Bulletin 20: Educating the Urban Poor (pp. 6-7). Lee Kuan

Yew School of Public Policy, Singapore.

When citing the entire bulletin

• Asian Trends Monitoring Bulletin (2013), Bulletin 20: Educating

the Urban Poor (pp. 6-7). Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy,

Singapore.

When citing our survey data

• Asian Trends Monitoring (2012). A dataset on urban poverty

and service provision. Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy,

National University of Singapore.

Educating the Urban Poorby Taufik Indrakesuma & Johannes Loh

i Machin, Stephen (2006). “Social disadvantage and education experiences”. OECD Social,

Employment and Migration Working Papers. Accessed from: http://www.oecd.org/social/

socialpoliciesanddata/36165298.pdf

Contents4 s Southeast Asia: A general overview of education by Taufik Indrakesuma and Johannes Loh

6 s Educating the poor: past, present, futureby Taufik Indrakesuma and Johannes Loh

8 s The opportunity costs of education by Taufik Indrakesuma and Johannes Loh

12 s Educating “non-existent” children by Taufik Indrakesuma and Johannes Loh

14 s The curriculum conundrum by Taufik Indrakesuma and Johannes Loh

Researcher Johannes Loh poses with schoolchildren in Jakarta.

54

Southeast Asia: A general overview of education

Education is considered one of the cornerstones

of modern society. Once considered a privilege

of the elite, it is now viewed as a basic human

right that governments are desperately trying to

provide to their constituencies.

Education policies all around Southeast Asia

reflect this prioritization, with education taking

up an increasingly large share of government

spending. For example, Indonesian law now

mandates that educational spending should

comprise at least 20% of the national budgetii.

Government spending in Thailand, Vietnam,

Malaysia, and the Philippines are at similarly

high levels, each above 15%. This level of expen-

diture is higher than other important sectors

such as health and defense spending. Figure

1 shows a comparison of central government

spending in the different sectors.

This increased spending has manifested itself

in several policies that make formal education

more accessible for the poor. The Philippines

has a nationwide free education policy for pri-

mary school level, Indonesia and Thailand

provide free education up to secondary school,

while countries like Laos and Vietnam provide

school fee subsidies for the poorest households

in each district. Other school expenses such as

textbooks are circumvented by government

funding to improve public school libraries.

Despite the large amounts of attention and

spending, there are still huge gaps in provision.

In major urban centers like Jakarta and Manila,

hundreds of school-age children are unable

to attend school, despite free basic education

and other similar blanket policies. In the Asian

Primary school students in Vientiane, enjoying their afternoon break.

Trends Monitoring Bulletin’s survey on urban

poverty, out of 804 households with children

in Jakarta, Manila, Hanoi, and Vientiane, 201

households had at least one child under 16 who

was out of school.

The ATM survey revealed that poor com-

munities in these major cities still have trouble

accessing good schools. The evidence in the

field suggests that these policies are not work-

ing effectively. Figures 2 and 3 below shows that

the current education policy regimes in these

cities are still unable to help the bottom of the

pyramid. Many households in our sample strug-

gle with paying school-related expenses and

finding good quality schools for their children.

This suggests that either the assistance is not

enough, e.g. subsidized school fees are still too

expensive, or that the assistance is simply inac-

cessible to these households. ATM

ii Indonesian constitutional court decree 13/PUU-VI I 2008

Figure1. Government spending in different sectorsiiiby Taufik Indrakesuma & Johannes Loh

iii World Development Indicators Global Development Finance (WDI GDF) data, World Bank (WB)

76

Educating the poor: past, present, future

As the statistics presented in the previous sec-

tion indicate, the poor at bottom of the pyra-

mid are still unable to access education. Costs

are still too high and subsidies are not reaching

the households that need it the most. In order to

determine the root causes of the problems and

the necessary solutions, it is useful to use ana-

lytical tools such as the futures triangle.

The futures triangle, as conceptualized by

Sohail Inayatullah (2008), analyzes a problem

through three time frames: future, present,

past. The “pulls of the future” are the ideals and

images of the future that people envision and

base current policies around. The pushes of the

present are the emerging issues and trends that

are influencing the status quo and that could be

either supporting or hindering society’s move

towards the future images. The weights of the

past are the traditions and historical factors that

act as a barrier to change.

In the case of education policies in Southeast

Asia, the futures triangle takes shape as shown

below.

There are several historical factors that influ-

ence today’s education policies. For example,

the current format of one-size-fits-all national

education provision model is a Western import

that has persisted for decades. The traditional

shape and structure of classrooms, the social

norms for teachers and students, and the assess-

ment criteria are all inherited from past genera-

tions and are rarely evaluated for relevance in

today’s society. This can become a hindrance

when considering innovations that break away

from traditional education structures.

There are also new and emerging issues that

challenge the existing education paradigms and

policies. Large numbers of people are flooding

major cities in search of jobs, without the skills

to actually obtain them. As a consequence,

many parents at the bottom of the income pyr-

amid cannot make enough to afford urban life,

forcing the children to leave school and help

with earning money. This is exacerbated by the

intensifying education “arms-race” of the mid-

dle class and growing global competitive pres-

sures, which perpetually raises the minimum

education requirements of decent jobs. If these

patterns continue, the poor children of today

will find attractive jobs to be increasingly out

of reach. On a macro scale, this means that the

growth of megacities such as Jakarta and Manila

may become stunted by a widening mismatch

of skills in demand and available labour on the

ground.

These realities are in sharp contrast to the

idealistic images that people associate with

education. The world today envisions a future

where children are shaped by the education

system as “reformed citizens”: well-educated,

well-informed, and able to transition into a

decent white-collar job. This region in partic-

ular is also preoccupied with another future

vision: the “Rise of Asia”. Asia’s growing stock

in the world’s power structure has compelled

Asian countries to focus more resources on their

best and brightest, in order to be able to com-

pete with the best and the brightest of the rest

of the world. This is what futurists refer to as a

“used future”, where the visualized end goal is

arbitrarily determined and not compatible with

reality. Now, the poor require education that

will equip them with the skills to enter the work

force and escape poverty. This kind of alterna-

tive goal to education requires not only the

extra resources that are currently being spent

elsewhere, but also a complete paradigm shift

in education policy makers.

Analyses can be drawn from linkages

between past, present, and future. For exam-

ple, historical rural traditions of child labor are

brought to the city by the influx of rural-urban

migrants. This leads to a higher incidence

of child labor, which is problematic not only

because urban labor conditions can be less safe

than rural labor conditions, but also because

the long hours of work pull the children out of

school almost permanently. The team has heard

first-hand accounts of this, where children in

Manila’s trash collector community are sent to

work in hazardous dump sites as soon as they

are strong enough to carry a burlap sack.

The emerging issue of rural-urban migration

also clashes with the traditional service provi-

sion model. Education subsidies (as well as pub-

lic services in general) are usually distributed

based on census and residential data. However,

most households that are at the bottom of the

pyramid and require the most help are usually

made up of migrants who do not have official

residency status in these cities. Thus, the house-

holds are not eligible for education subsidies

and the children are unable to attend schools.

From this futures triangle, we have distilled

three major problems that we believe are most

important to address in order to improve educa-

tion provision in Southeast Asia.

1. Economic incentives of families must

be taken into account when design-

ing education policy. This includes the

incentive for child labor and the cost/

benefit calculations of sending a child

to school.

2. The land tenure issue must be

addressed or bypassed in order to

open education access to all children.

Traditional service provision models

must be revised, or alternative provi-

sion sources must be found.

3. A new future image is needed that is

more inclusive of alternative pathways

out of poverty. It is not enough to talk

about education for the purpose of

improving the competitiveness of

the top of the pyramid. Curriculums

must be restructured or diversified in

order to provide a more relevant and

meaningful education to poor house-

holds. In the long run, this would also

contribute to a more balanced labour

force composition with likely benefits

for the country’s overall productivity.

ATM

Some alternative curriculums teach practical skills such as gardening.

by Taufik Indrakesuma & Johannes Loh

98

Laos are beginning to dedicate more govern-

ment spending on making education cheaper,

with free education being offered to the poor-

est households in each neighborhood (see ATM

#18 - Hanoi’s Poor, p.8 : The Poor List).

Despite all these efforts to reduce education

expenses for poor households, school enroll-

ment is not yet universal. Even where enroll-

ment is nearly universal, quality of education is

by no means guaranteed.

The ATM team’s investigation into the mat-

ter through interviews with parents of poor

families and surveys of poor households reveals

that the problem is not a lack of parental aware-

ness or negligence. In fact, the survey results in

all four cities indicate that parents place a high

value on their children’s education, and believe

that if their children go to school, they will have

a brighter future in the long run. The problem,

however, is still related to costs.

Despite government subsidies for tuition

fees, other expenditures related to school

remain high. Sending a child to school entails

additional expenses for transportation, school

uniforms, textbooks, and other school sup-

plies. Most countries, unfortunately, do not

include these items in their subsidy schemes.

Some households we interviewed reported that

these expenses are exacerbated by the rapid

changes in school curriculums, which means

that younger siblings cannot use the old text-

books of their older siblings and are forced to

buy new ones.

However, one of the largest cost is the intan-

gible “opportunity cost” of foregone income.

Many of the poorest households cannot survive

on the parents’ income alone. This means that

much of the time, the children have to work as

well, earning additional money through beg-

ging, collecting rubbish, or assisting in their

parents’ businesses. Thus, any time spent in

school is seen as time that is not spent work-

ing. The long-term payoffs of a good education

suddenly pale in comparison to the immediate

The opportunity costs of education

All around Southeast Asia, governments at all

levels have attempted to lower the cost of edu-

cation. Indonesia has instated free education

for all children up to the ninth year of school vii. The Philippines has a similar free education

policy, where primary and secondary education

has been free of charge since the Free Public

Secondary Education Act of 1988. Thailand

is, perhaps, the best example of free educa-

tion provision. Not only does the government

guarantee twelve years of free basic educa-

tion, it also provides free textbooks and other

educational supplies for the students. Even

less developed countries such as Vietnam and

The difficulty in prioritizing education

In Phonethong Village, Vientiane, the team interviewed a woman named Malychanh who

was one of the poorest residents of the village. She lives with her husband who sells trin-

kets out of a pushcart in the nearby market, and her four children. Malychanh herself

only works during harvesting season, harvesting rice crops from large farms and getting

paid in rice.

Because of this working arrangement, although the family has enough food to sur-

vive, there is not much money for other necessities. One of those necessities that have

become unaffordable is sending her children to school. One of her daughters has gradu-

ated secondary school and wants to attend university, but the family can barely afford it.

Malychanh also said that things will become even more complicated soon, as her young-

est daughter is almost 6 years old, and will start attending primary school. Although the

school itself is free of charge, she said that other expenses such as textbooks, uniforms,

meals and transportation still add up to quite a hefty sum, which represents an insur-

mountable challenge to the household’s budget.

Finally, when asked whether, in the event of a cash windfall, she would prioritize

spending the money on sending her children to better schools, she thought long and

hard before answering that she would have to prioritize opening a small business ahead

of her children’s education.

Even makeshift school buildings can become excellent venues for learning.

vii Indonesian National Education System Law of 2003 ix World Development Indicators Global Development Finance (WDI GDF) data, World Bank (WB) x World Development Indicators Global Development Finance (WDI GDF) data, World Bank (WB)

by Taufik Indrakesuma & Johannes Loh

1110

need to put food on the table.

One solution that government agencies

have used to address opportunity costs is con-

ditional cash transfers. Indonesia, Cambodia,

and the Philippines have implemented CCT

programs linked to education behaviors. The

Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (P4), for

example, requires an 85% attendance record

for all school age children in the household as

one of the conditions for payment. Cambodia’s

CCT program, the Cambodia Education Sector

Support Project, was made specifically to

improve school attendance, and includes pass-

ing grades as one of the conditionsxiii. Indonesia

has a CCT program that is community-based,

which encourages households to monitor and

assist each other in making sure that all children

in the community are in school.

For years, NGOs and other stakeholders in

the education sector have experimented with

their own alternative solutions for poor commu-

nities unable to attend government schools due

to either financial or physical restrictions. Each

of the organizations that the ATM team spoke to

had their own unique solutions. Sekolah Kami, a

school in Jakarta, compromises through short-

ening school hours, allowing children to work

after school hours (see box "Sekolah Kami").

The Philippine Christian Foundation (see Box "

The Philippine Christian Foundation") attempts

to incentivize school attendance by provid-

ing work opportunities for mothers within the

school’s premises. ATM

Conditional cash transfers are a type of cash payment with prerequisites or conditions. These cash payments are only made to households that can ful-fill conditions that usually include child welfare improvements, including vac-cinations and routine medical check-ups for young children, and routine school attendance for both boys and girls.

Sekolah Kami

Sekolah Kami, or “our school”, is a school that was built on top of a

landfill to the east of Jakarta in 2007 by Dr. Irina Amongpradja. The

school can hold up to 150 students, and has been the sole beacon

of hope for the residents of the surrounding slums. (For more gen-

eral information about the school, refer to ATM Bulletin #16: Jakarta’s

Poor.)

The school system itself presents a unique approach to educat-

ing the poor and dealing with the opportunity costs of education.

There are two vital aspects of the Sekolah Kami approach that make

it appealing to the poor: its stance towards working children and its

custom curriculum.

The approach that Sekolah Kami takes towards working children

is that of compromise and pragmatism. As a school that caters to

a trash collector community, Dr. Irina recognizes that parents need

their children’s assistance in order to earn enough money. Children

as young as six years old have to spend most of their days out in the

landfills or the surrounding streets to find recyclables and other valu-

ables in the rubbish. As such, keeping the children in school for the

usual six to eight hours per day is out of the question for these par-

ents. This is why Sekolah Kami’s school day is only four hours long.

Children are in school from 8AM to noon, at which point they can

go home and proceed to help their parents with their work. This

method lowers the parental resistance to school, as the parents do

not feel like they are being denied an income stream, but at the same

time provides their children with valuable knowledge and skills

The second aspect is Sekolah Kami’s customized curriculum.

Sekolah Kami does not follow the Indonesian national primary

school curriculum. Although some conventional components such

as mathematics, Indonesian and English are present, the school

focuses the children’s education on practical skills. Younger children

are taught gardening and organic soap-making, while the older chil-

dren are taught to sew and to make handicrafts from recycled mate-

rials. This way, students are able to apply the things they learn in

school to earn money on the side – perhaps much more than they

would earn as trash collectors. The children are able to get an edu-

cation, learning English and mathematics alongside their practical

skills, and the parents are happy because the flow of income may

actually increase at the same time.

The drawbacks to this method are obvious. Less classroom time

means fewer lessons, and an abridged formal component of the cur-

riculum means that it will be difficult for the children of Sekolah Kami

to continue to formal secondary schools unless they cover a signifi-

cant amount of extra ground. Thus, graduates of Sekolah Kami are

equipped with not much more than the practical skills and a basic

understanding of reading, writing, and mathematics. This method

becomes a means to make small improvements in the lives of poor

families, but does not give them the ability to fully escape poverty.

However, perhaps those small improvements are enough for now.

xiii World Bank. Cambodia: Education Sector Support Project.

1312

over 10,000 poor households live with nowhere

near enough schools, compelled the Urban Poor

Consortium to start up a number of schools in

the district (see box "Urban Poor Consortium").

These are not insignificant numbers of children,

and population growth is sure to exacerbate the

problem.

As more poor people move into cities and

slums continue to grow, the reliance on NGOs

to provide schools for slums becomes unsus-

tainable, due to limited funding and insufficient

scale. Policy makers must find solutions that

work in the long term. One of the favored solu-

tions of government officials that the team has

spoken to is slum relocation, which moves the

households to public housing estates that are

closer to public schools. However, as the team

has argued several times in past bulletins, slum

relocation is not only problematic in execution

but also unpopular.

One policy alternative is for governments

to, without the end goal of relocation, con-

duct proper information gathering of slums,

e.g. with a census or special surveys. If govern-

ments have better information about the popu-

lation, including the number of school age chil-

dren residing in the slums, the government can

then build enough schools and provide enough

funding to subsidize school fees in the neigh-

borhoods. This circumvents the need to relocate

and formalize the residency status of the com-

munities. However, the biggest drawback to this

system is the high mobility and turnover of slum

communities. Most NGOs that work in slums

have mentioned that people move in and out

constantly – the neighborhoods they serve can

have completely different inhabitants from one

year to the next. This makes it difficult to keep

track of the community’s children; slum reloca-

tion would encourage settling in one area for an

extended period of time, giving stability for the

children’s schooling.

Another option is to support the NGO-run

schools with government funding. This allows

NGOs to continue their operations and build on

Educating “non-existent” children

As mentioned in a previous section, most of

Southeast Asia already has some sort of edu-

cation subsidy for poor households. Indonesia,

Philippines, and Thailand already have their

nationwide free education policies, while

countries like Laos and Vietnam have special

schemes in place for the poorest households.

However, in the major cities of these countries,

there are still many children who cannot access

these services, because they are not legal resi-

dents of the city.

In many of these major cities, governments

have been trying to curb migration levels by

making it more difficult for people to gain

residency status. This means that millions of

poor people who moved to the city in search of

a better living are forced to live without formal

residency status. They often do not have legal

tenure over their places of residence in the city,

making it even more difficult to prove their eli-

gibility for government services, such as educa-

tion subsidies.

In some slums in major cities, the problem is

even worse. Because these slums are not built

on formal residential zones, the government

does not have an obligation to build schools

for the families in the slums. Thus, the children

have to rely on schools run by charities or NGOs

that are willing to take in children from “illegal”

households.

In the field, the ATM team identified sev-

eral schools that were founded specifically to

cater to slums because the city governments

did not have accurate data on the population

and have not provided schools for the neigh-

borhood. The West Bekasi dumpsite in Jakarta,

where Sekolah Kami (see box "Sekolah Kami")

operates, is home to over 100 households with

over 300 children. Over 1,000 children live in

the dumpsite in Tondo, Manila, where PCF (see

box "Philippines Christian Foundation") runs its

school. Penjaringan district in Jakarta, where

The Philippine Christian Foundation

Jane Walker runs the Philippine Christian Foundation (PCF), a Manila-

based charity that set up a school for a trash collector community liv-

ing near the Smokey Mountain dump site. The school is able to take

in around 100 students and has become a major asset to the slums

around Smokey Mountain. (For more information on the Philippine

Christian Foundation, refer to ATM Bulletin #17: Manila’s Poor)

One of the big differences between PCF’s education model and

other organizations that we interviewed in the four cities is that

PCF’s schools do not tailor their curriculum to the more immediate

income-generation needs of the poor. Rather, they teach the con-

ventional curriculum, albeit modified with a focus on building self-

esteem and “dreaming big”. Where most other NGO schools provide

financial support for its graduates to start their own businesses, PCF

instead offers university scholarships to its brightest students.

“I do not believe in child labor, and neither does my organiza-

tion,” Walker said. In fact, a quick visit to the PCF website showed

a very prominent display of the statement “END CHILD LABOR” on

the front page. This paradigm represents the driving motivation for

PCF’s staff.

Even the PCF livelihood programs are consistent with this belief.

The livelihood program trains people in the art of making recycled

handicrafts from aluminum pull tabs and other recycled materials.

These handicrafts are then sold to both local and international mar-

kets, with a fair share of the proceeds going to the workers. Only the

parents can participate in the program, whereas the children are not

allowed. “We provide work for their parents in order to get them to

better accept their children’s enrollment in school. If the parents can

make enough money, the children will not be forced to help.” This

offer has been taken up enthusiastically by the mothers and helped

to lower absenteeism rates by 40%.

This model shows that the opportunity costs of sending chil-

dren to school can be overcome with a hardline stance of no child

labor. However, being unwilling to compromise on child labor comes

necessitates the provision of alternate sources of income for the par-

ents. Not all organizations will be able to provide jobs for the parents

of their students, and not even PCF is able to provide jobs for all of

the parents. Thus, while this method is not easily replicable, it nev-

ertheless fills a significant educational gap in Tondo’s trash-picker

community.

Urban Poor Consortium

Penjaringan district in North Jakarta

is home to one of the largest and poor-

est slums in Jakarta. In this otherwise

service-deprived slum, there are over ten

small schools where poor children can

experience an education for free. These

schools were founded by the Urban Poor

Consortium (UPC), a Jakarta-based pro-

poor NGO that specializes in advocacy but

also dabbles in service provision.

According to UPC, public facilities in

Penjaringan, including public schools, are

very rare because it is not a formal resi-

dential area. Most of the dwellings in the

area are built on top of reclaimed marsh-

land, making it extremely flood-prone and

unsafe for habitation. The services that do

exist are poorly maintained, as there is not

much funding allocated to improving con-

ditions in informal slums.

One of the most pressing concerns of

UPC was the complete lack of school facili-

ties for the hundreds of children living in

the area. Public schools are very far away

from the slums, making it unfeasible for

children to attend. UPC decided to inter-

vene by using volunteer teachers to start

informal classrooms that teach alternative

curriculums. UPC believes that there is not

much merit to teaching the conventional

Indonesian curriculum, as the students are

unlikely to continue to formal education.

Instead, the curriculum taught is focused

on creativity, entrepreneurship, and

practical skills that can be used to earn a

decent income.

Our UPC source informed us that the

success of the schools attracted the atten-

tion of the city government, convinc-

ing the government to approach UPC

and offer a takeover of the schools and

a conversion to the formal public educa-

tion curriculum. This would be the ideal

transition for a small NGO-run school:

the government, with more resources at

its disposal, would be better able to sus-

tain the school in the long run. However,

UPC rejected the offer, citing its general

distrust of the government and desire to

maintain its alternative curriculum. This is

quite clearly a missed opportunity due to

a lack of willingness to compromise from

both sides. Governments should be more

open to the alternative methods of NGOs,

while NGOs should be more willing to

consider the longer term benefits of gov-

ernment cooperation.

by Taufik Indrakesuma & Johannes Loh

1514

their existing relationships with the communi-

ties, while the government fulfills its responsibil-

ity by supporting the organizations financially.

This may be effective because NGO schools are

generally well received because they ensure

parental and community support through dia-

logues and direct involvement, as opposed

to government schools which are seen as dis-

tant and bureaucratic. However, this requires a

willingness, on the part of the NGOs, to coop-

erate with the government and, on the part

of the government, to allow the NGO schools

to continue their operations, customized cur-

riculums and all. In the case of the Urban Poor

Consortium in Jakarta, such a deal could not

be struck. If the NGO-run school is designed

to follow standard curriculum from the begin-

ning, the obstacles for government cooperation

would be lower. ATM

The curriculum conundrum

The ATM team observed that the many NGO

schools took very different approaches with

regards to curriculums. Some NGOs chose to

adopt the formal education curriculum in order

to allow their students to take standardized

examinations and remain within the formal

education system. Other NGOs chose “alterna-

tive” paths with fully-customized curriculums

that are tailored to the likely needs of children

from poorer families. There were also some

who adopted a “hybrid” model that included

elements of the formal curriculum while pro-

viding additional lessons outside the formal

curriculum.

However, some schools that we saw also

adopted the national public school curricu-

lum, such as PCF’s school in Manila. In addi-

tion, all public schools in poor neighborhoods

also still follow the formal curriculum. This mea-

sure is one that favors equality of opportunities,

because it treats poor children the same way it

would treat other children. Poor children who

are taught the national curriculum will be able

to take national examinations and will be able to

continue down the formal education path. If the

children can make it through the formal educa-

tion path, it equips them better for decent jobs

and gives them more opportunities to lift their

families out of poverty.

However, this is a method that does not

acknowledge the unique circumstances of

children from poor households. The equality

of opportunity approach does not take into

account the lower likelihood that such children

will continue their formal education beyond

primary or secondary school. Although teach-

ing them the formal curriculum theoretically

gives them the opportunity to continue to high

school or university, it rarely actually happens.

Often, the cost barriers of continuing education

to that level (both actual school fees and oppor-

tunity costs) are insurmountable, which leads

children to opt out and start working instead. In

this case, the formal curriculum, full of theoreti-

cal knowledge and tailored to prepare students

for tertiary education, will not be of much prac-

tical use or in many cases exceed the children’s

existing knowledge base.

On the other hand, there is the choice of

creating a customized curriculum that is more

relevant to children from extremely poor back-

grounds. The team visited several NGO schools

that chose this model. Sekolah Kami in Jakarta

teaches a curriculum full of practical skills, like

soap-making and sewing. The KOTO organiza-

tion in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City (read ATM

#18 on Hanoi’s Poor) takes unschooled street

children and trains them in hospitality and culi-

nary skills.

This model works better in the short run, as

attending school gives immediate payoffs in

terms of increased income potential. Children

who are taught practical skills or trained in a

The team interviews students about their education and their future aspirations.

Teaching practical skills can give significant income boosts to poor households.

by Taufik Indrakesuma & Johannes Loh

1716

particular vocation are able to use their new

knowhow to earn a living. This makes them

an asset to their families because it boosts

their family’s income. So, it can be said that the

knowledge of soap-making or craftsmanship is

much more valuable in the short run than the

potential to attend university somewhere down

the line.

However, this model also puts the children

into a long-term disadvantage. Focusing les-

sons on making handicrafts means that the

children are pigeon-holed into that way of life

in the future. Not having the potential to con-

tinue to higher levels of education means that

the income potential of these youngsters can-

not get much larger than whatever amount they

can make from their practical skills. This may be

enough to support their parents’ incomes while

they are young, but may not be enough to raise

their own families in better conditions. This

method, then, needs to be complemented with

adult learning programs that can fill the gaps

and provide different skills later on in life.

There are some other organizations that

focus on neither the public school curricu-

lum nor practical skills. For example, a Manila-

based organization called Childhope Asia runs

“open classrooms” where social workers go to

poor neighborhoods and teach the local street

children. Although they teach reading, writing,

and basic arithmetic, they focus their sessions

on teaching values and social norms, building

self-esteem, and providing psychosocial coun-

seling. In this case, Childhope Asia’s knowledge

of the local conditions (the families of these

street children do not provide a real support

network, often involving abusive adults) gives

their method an advantage because it caters to

the most pressing needs of the children. It is not

designed to replace formal school. In this case,

teaching values and building self-esteem may

actually ease the transition into a formal edu-

cation setting, making the students more com-

fortable with daily social interactions of formal

schools. ATM

Ekphattana Microfinance Institute

Some additions to school curriculum can be neither academic nor

vocational, but rather life skills that would be useful in the long run.

For example, in the field of microfinance, one of the biggest chal-

lenges that microfinance providers face is the unreliable behavior

of their clients. Households in poor communities are unlikely to be

financially literate, let alone financially responsible. Thus, one micro-

finance organization in Vientiane decided to nip the problem in the

bud and teach financial literacy to children.

Ekphattana Microfinance Institute is the first and largest microfi-

nance provider in Lao PDR. It is also one that puts much emphasis on

financial education of poor communities. It runs several financial lit-

eracy training programs every month for both potential and current

clients. Because the organization is looking to become a 100% sav-

ings-based MFI and wants to continue its expansion, it is important

that its clients are not only lenders, but also savers. “The problem

with the Lao people is that saving is not really part of the culture,”

said Chantha Mingboupha, Deputy Director of EMI. The ATM survey

findings supported these claims, with 53% of respondents citing that

they do not save regularly.

The education program entails weekly visits to the school to give

lessons about the importance of savings, as well as a mandatory daily

savings of 1000 kip (US$ 12.5 cents) per student per day. Students are

shown the potential amount of money that can be saved over the

course of the year as a way to build motivation and discipline.

The pilot program for EMI’s financial training for children was

launched in Sokpaluang Primary School in Vientiane. Because it was

a pilot program, the organization could not take the risk of starting

in a “poor” school. However, Mingboupha said that the education

program, if successful, could be spread to more schools, including

ones with primarily poor students.

A teacher in Jakarta explains the merits of teaching children about gardening.

1918

With proper interventions, these children can be guaranteed a better future.

20

Johannes Loh is working as a Research Associate at the

Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. He holds a Master’s

degree in Public Policy from the Hertie School of Public

Policy in Berlin, and a Bachelor of Arts in Integrated

Social Science from Jacobs University Bremen. His previ-

ous research experience includes aid governance, visual

political communication and public sector reform in

developing countries. Prior to joining the Lee Kuan Yew

School of Public Policy he has also worked for the United

Nations Environment Programme in Geneva, Transparency International Nepal, and

the Centre on Asia and Globalisation in Singapore. His email is johannes.loh@nus.

edu.sg and you can follow his updates on trends in pro-poor policies in the region on

Twitter @AsianTrendsMon.

Taufik Indrakesuma is a research associate at the Lee

Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. He is a recent gradu-

ate of the Master in Public Policy programme at the

Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. He also holds a

Bachelor in Economics degree from the University of

Indonesia, specialising in environmental economics.

Taufik has previously worked as a Programme Manager

at the Association for Critical Thinking, an NGO dedicated

to proliferating critical thinking and human rights aware-

ness in the Indonesian education system. His research interests include behavioural

economics, energy policy, climate change mitigation and adaptation as well as urban

development policy. His email is taufik.i@nus.edu.sg

Phua Kai Hong is a tenured professor at the LKY School

of Public Policy and formerly held a joint appointment as

Associate Professor and Head, Health Services Research

Unit in the Faculty of Medicine. He is frequently con-

sulted by governments within the region and interna-

tional organisations, including the Red Cross, UNESCAP,

WHO and World Bank. He has lectured and published

widely on policy issues of population aging, health-

care management and comparative health systems in

the emerging economies of Asia. He is the current Chair of the Asia-Pacific Health

Economics Network (APHEN), founder member of the Asian Health Systems Reform

Network (DRAGONET), Editorial Advisory Board Member of Research in Healthcare

Financial Management and an Associate Editor of the Singapore Economic Review.

His email address is spppkh@nus.edu.sg

T S Gopi Rethinaraj joined the Lee Kuan Yew School

of Public Policy as Assistant Professor in July 2005.

He received his PhD in nuclear engineering from the

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Before

coming to Singapore, he was involved in research and

teaching activities at the Programme in Arms Control,

Disarmament and International Security, a multi-disciplin-

ary teaching and research programme at Illinois devoted

to military and non-military security policy issues. His

doctoral dissertation, “Modeling Global and Regional Energy Futures,” explored the

intersection between energy econometrics, climate policy and nuclear energy futures.

He also worked as a science reporter for the Mumbai edition of The Indian Express

from 1995 to 1999, and has written on science, technology, and security issues for

various Indian and British publications. In 1999, he received a visiting fellowship from

the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Chicago, for the investigative reporting on South

Asian nuclear security. His current teaching and research interests include energy secu-

rity, climate policy, energy technology assessment, nuclear fuel cycle policies and inter-

national security. He is completing a major research monograph "Historical Energy

Statistics: Global, Regional, and National Trends since Industrialisation" to be published

in Summer 2012. His email address is spptsgr@nus.edu.sg

Principal Investigators Research Associates

The Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy is an autonomous, professional graduate school of the National University of Singapore.

Its mission is to help educate and train the next generation of Asian policymakers and leaders, with the objective of raising the

standards of governance throughout the region, improving the lives of its people and, in so doing, contribute to the transformation

of Asia. For more details on the LKY School, please visit www.spp.nus.edu.sg