T H E PREDICTION OF P R I V A T E DEMAND FOR EDUCATION:

AN INDONESIAN CASE STUDY

R. PEARSE

A number of methodologies, including the estimation of manpower needs and of

the rate of return to investment, offer ways and means by which governments in the
third world can define an appropriate level of supply of formal education. However,
in practice, the desires of individual families for education for their children deter-
mine the actual level of utilization of the education supplied by government, and,
acting through the private sector, also directly influence the level of supply. This
study, based on a survey of rural families in several provinces in Indonesia, is an at-
tempt to search for variables, and combinations of variables, which predict the ac-
tual utilization of schooling by individual families. The analysis suggests that the
following are useful predic tots: variables indicative of the provision of educational
opportunity, some structural characteristics of the family, the family's economic
status and the value orientations of the family toward education. A number of var-
iables, more directly related to family demand, and of a more complex nature, are
identified for investigation in further research.

Plusieurs mdthodologies incluant I'estimation du besoin en main-d'oeuvre et du

taux de rentabilitd de l'investissement permettent aux gouvernements du tiers mon-
de de ddterminer un niveau approprid d'offre de syst~mes d'enseignement. Cepen-
dant dans la pratique les ddsirs de chaque famille particuli~re pour l'dducation de
ses enfants ddterminent le niveau rdel d'utilisation de l'enseignement dispensd par
le gouvernement, et, agissant par l'interm~diaire du secteur privd, ils influencent
directement le niveau de l'offre. Cette dtude basle sur une enqu~te sur les families
rurales dans plusieurs provinces d'Indondsie, est une tentative de recherches de vari-
ables et de combinaisons de variables prddisant l'utilisation rdelle de l'instruction
par chaque famille particuli~re. L 'analyse sugg~re que les facteurs suivants sont
d'utiles dldments de prddiction: les variables indiquant la prdsence d'opportunitds
dducationnelles, les caractdristiques structurales de la famille, le statut dconomique
de la famille et la valeur qu'accorde la famille 21l'dducation. Plusieurs variables en
relation plus directe avec les demandes des familles et d'une nature plus complexe
ont dtd dtablies pour faire l'objet de plus ampIes recherches.

Verschiedene Methodologien einschliesslich der Schlitzung des Bedarfs an Arbeits-

kr~ften und des Ertrags yon Investitionen bieten Regierungen in der Dritten Welt
die MiSglichkeit, den Bedarf fiir Schulerziehung festzustellen. In PraMs bestimmen
jedoch die Wiinsche der einzelnen Familien beziiglich Ausbildung ihrer Kinder das
Ausmass, in dem yon den BildungsmiSglichkeiten, die die Regierung zur Verfiigung
266 R. PEARSe

stellt, Gebrauch gernacht wird. Uber den privaten Sektor beeinflussen sie auch di-
rekt den Umfang des Angebots. Diese auf einer Erhebung bei liindlichen Famitien
in mehreren Provinzen Indonesiens beruhende Studie stellt einen Versuch dar, Va-
riable und Kornbinationen yon Variablen zu finden, rnit deren Hilfe die tatsiichliche
Benutzung schulischer Einrichtungen durch die Farnilien vorausgesagt werden kann.
Die Analyse ergibt, class die folgenden dafiir niitzlich wiiren: Versorgung rnit Bil-
dungsrn6glichkeiten, Familienstrukturmerkmale, wirtschaftlicher Status der Familie
und Einstellung der Familie zur Bildung. Eine Anzahl komplizierterer und direkter
auf die Familienwiinsche bezogener Variablen werden zum Gebrauch in weiteren
Untersuchungen empfohlen.

Governments in developing countries almost universally attempt to de-

fine the level of supply of education in accordance with their assessment
of development needs. The content of these definitions is extremely
variable both within one country at different stages of development, and
from country to country, as development efforts require different em-
phases. At any one time within a given country the criteria which a gov-
ernment uses to define the proper supply of education are likely to be
complex, in that the provision of education has to satisfy a variety of
interlocking goals which relate to the government's need for support by
the population, social welfare policies and economic needs and con-
straints. Certain general criteria have been created to help define the
proper supply. The "educational needs" approach (Parnes: 1962) has
been utilized in the past by UNESCO to define sets of guideline "tar-
gets" appropriate for the countries in a region. More explicitly derived
from the criteria of maximising economic growth, and more readily quan-
tifiable in terms of enrolment ratios by different levels and types of edu-
cation, variants of the "manpower approach" (Harbison & Myers, 1964)
define the supply in terms of occupational skills required by economic
growth. The "rate of return" approach (Blaug, 1972) takes into account
both the costs of the supply of education and the economic or income
benefits which can be expected to follow from it, in order to indicate
the desirability of expansion of certain levels or types of education.
Whatever the shortcomings may be of the definitions of a desirable
level of supply based on these methods, and the needs for improved meth-
odologies, they are methods which can be used to provide explicit, quan-
tifiable definitions of the needed supply of education, and, in the case
of the "rate of return" approach, the costs at which the provision of the
supply is a good investment. As "targets", "goals", or "directions for
expansion" these definitions can assist a government to make decisions
for the future.
AN INDONESIAN CASE STUDY 267

However, the demand for education by the populace, unlike the sup-
ply, is not determined by the decisions of policy makers who are grap-
pling with the issues of national or regional development, but by the
desires of individual families which utilize education to provide for their
needs and the needs of their children. These demands of the population
create pressures to which governments often respond by the supply of
education from government resources, by allowing or encouraging non-
government bodies to provide the education, or by restraining the sup-
ply below the level of demand.
At least in some cases, the results of this response by government to
demand has been to nullify any definition of appropriate levels of sup-
ply by any of the development needs criteria indicated above. Indonesia
and the Philippines, for example, exemplify the over-expansion of the
supply of tertiary education compared with manpower and rate of re-
turn criteria in order to meet high levels of demand. By contrast, the
expansion of primary education in Indonesia has provided a level of
supply greater than the demand at current cost levels as evidenced by a
high rate of voluntary drop out from primary schools.
The current level of demand for education by a population is usually
represented by a participation ratio which expresses the proportion of
an age group at school. The participation ratio may result from a level
of supply which is less than the true level of demand, as when students
are refused admission to schools. It may result from a level of supply
which is greater than the true level of demand, as when students are com-
pelled to attend through compulsory attendance regulations. The parti-
cipation ratio at any one time also reflects the current balance between
the cost of the consumption of education to the family, and the cost of
the supply of education to the government. Thus, participation ratios
represent the outcome of government regulation or policies as well as
interaction between current levels of cost of demand and supply. Insofar
as the participation ratio reflects the effect of regulation of demand or
supply it does not measure true current levels of demand, and, insofar
as it reflects current costs of supply and demand it may be increased or
decreased by future changes.
Despite these problems of invalidity and instability, the enrolment
ratio is often used as the basis for the prediction of future aggregate de-
mand for a whole population, or some sub-group of a population, by
extrapolation of participation ratios into the future. Whether these pre-
dictions prove to be correct depends upon the extent to which the future
conditions of supply, price and benefits replicate the past and current
268 v.. P~ARSE

conditions. In general, it might be expected the predictions will turn

out to be relatively accurate when there are no marked discontinuities
in the society, the economy and the educational system-that is under
conditions where prediction is less necessary. When there are changes in
these conditions and the need for predictions is greater extrapolation
into the future tends to be less accurate.
A conceptual alternative to the prediction of future demand from
enrolment trends is to predict demand on the basis of direct measures
of the components of demand by individual families. As a first step,
this approach requires these components to be identified and their inter-
relations displayed in such a way as to predict current demand. If var-
iables, and combinations of variables can be found to do this with accu-
racy, various predictions of future demand can then be made based upon
changes inthe component variables, as, for example, change in the level
of parental education across generations, the degree of urbanization, or
changes in occupational structure.
This paper reports an attempt to operationalize this conceptual alter-
native by identifying variables which are associated with a number of
measures of the demand for education, and examining the characteristics
of these variables and predictors of demand.
The attempt is based upon the conditions of the supply and demand
for education in rural Indonesia. Schooling is supplied by both govern-
ment and non government bodies at different levels of price, or cost to
families. It is also of different kinds in terms of religious affiliation and
academic or vocational content, as well as at differing levels of quality
in terms of academic standards. The conditions for the demand of school-
ing by families include a lack of compulsion upon attendance of children
at any level, and marked disparities between families in terms of income,
educational backgrounds, and residence in village or urban contexts.

The Sample 1
The sample consists of 109 heads of families in which one of the family's
children currently attends an Islamic primary school (called a Madrassah),
thus including families which also may send one or more of their child-
ren to a Department of Education (Government) school, but excluding
families which send all of their children to Department of Education
schools. Families were selected by simple random procedure from a list
of all Islamic primary schools in selected rural sub-districts (ketjamaten).
The sub-districts themselves were chosen by random procedure from a
AN INDONESIAN CASE STUDY 269

list of all sub-districts in each of six provinces. Only six of the twenty-
six Indonesian provinces were included for reasons of cost. Though an
equal number of families from each province was planned to be includ-
ed, unequal numbers were actually obtained. The largest number of res-
pondents (43%) were drawn from Central Java, followed by South Su-
matra (17 %), East Java (15%), South Sulawesi (11%), West Sumatra
(6%) and DCT Jakarta (5%). The sample therefore provides a valid basis
for the analysis adopted, and generalization to rural areas in the six pro-
vinces, but lack of proportionality does not allow generalization to any
one province.

The Data Set

The data are drawn from interviews with heads of households conducted
in 1972 by the National Assessment of Education Project under the aegis
of the Office of Educational Development (B.P.P.) of Indonesia, 2 as part
of a survey of the characteristics of students, their families, and of the
characteristics of schools sponsored by agencies other than the Depart-
ment of Education. From the large number of variables included in the
original interview schedule, a number of independent variables judged
to be potentially related to the family's demand for education were
selected. Other variables from the interviews were selected to be used as
the basis for the formation of indices of demand. From these, indices of
demand for amounts of education (called quantitative demand) and for
different kinds of education (called qualitative demand) were calculated,
to be used as dependent variables.
The characteristics of the variables, their code names, and their pre-
sumed relationship to demand are set out below.

Predictors of Demand: Independent Variables

A. Variables which describe objective residence characteristics of the
family
1. The location of the family (AREA) represents the family's residence
in one of the six sampled regions which vary in population density. The
variable is ordinal (from highest density, Jakarta area, to lowest, South
Sumatra) with respect to population density.
2. The size of the community in which the family lives (COMMUNITY).
This represents the distinction between village and rural small town. It is
ordinal, and represents both accessibility to education, occupational op-
portunity and occupational need for education.
270 R. PEARSE

B. Variables which represent objective characteristics of the family

3. Age of the respondent (AGE), is indicative of the maturity of the

family as a child bearing unit, and also indicative of the income level of
the family insofar as incomes are related to the age of the household
head?
4. Number of dependent children in the family (CHILDREN), is repre-
sentative of the level of the burden of supporting any given child of the
family at school.
5. Occupational level of the father (OCCUPATION I) in terms of the
level of skill of the father. This is an ordinal variable for which occupa-
tions are ranked on a seven point scale from unskilled through profes-
sional to owner of a large business. The ranks were obtained from the
occupational classifications in the original interview by means of pool-
ing the judgments of twenty Indonesian educators.
6. Employment of father (OCCUPATION II) in terms of employment
in government or private organisations is thought to represent attach-
ment to government or private sectors and possibly attitudes toward
government or privately sponsored education.
7. Possessions of the family (POSSESSIONS) is a composite index based
on a summation of the family's possession of livestock, transport, radio,
household lighting and modern household goods. It represents the eco-
nomic level of the family, but also the interest of the family in commu-
nications and consumer goods which may be a proxy for modern atti-
tudes.
8. Land owned by family (LAND). This ordinal index represents the
amount of land owned by the family, and is considered to be highly
potentially useful to distinguish between families classified as farmers. 4
9. House ownership (HOUSE OWNERSHIP). This variable represents
whether the family owns the household dwelling. It is related to levels of
income and to degrees of security. (Two categories.)
10. House construction (HOUSE TYPE). It is an ordinal variable repre-
senting the materials of which the house is constructed (from bamboo
to brick) and thereby the cost of the family house relative to others.
11. Education of father (EDUCATION(F)) is a continuous variable rep-
resenting the level of father's education from no education to tertiary,
and prospectively indicative of father's attitude toward education for
his children, as well as his income. Coombs (1968:20) proposes that
parents' educational level is a major predictor of parents' aspiration for
AN INDONESIAN CASE STUDY 271

their children. Sundrum (1974: 92) has shown that educational level of
employee correlates .8 with level of income for urban workers in seven
Indonesian cities. The relationship may be less strong in rural areas.
12. Mother's education (EDUCATION(M)), a continuous variable with
a range from no education to tertiary, and thought to be indicative of
mother's attitude to education.
C. Variables which represent characteristics of the child
13. The sex of the eldest child_in Madrassah (SEX) is thought to be re-
lated prospectively to the family's aspirations for further education of
the child in that further education may be preferred for boys but not
girls.
D. Variables related to family perceptions of and attitudes toward
education
14. Attendance of the child at a Department of Education ("secular")
school as well as a Madrassah is thought to indicate family attitudes to-
ward schooling, in that attendance at a Department of Education school
would indicate less than complete satisfaction with occupational prepa-
ration, preparation for secondary education, or religious education, avail-
able in the religious primary school. (Two categories.)
15. Judgment of the usefulness of the education provided by the Ma-
drassah (UTILITY), in terms of its value as terminal education. This is
an ordinal variable thought to indicate parents' attitude toward terminal
primary education.
16. Perception of available opportunities for the child to continue from
primary to secondary education (POSSIBILITY) is an ordinal variable
(from high opportunity to low) to represent the parents' overall assess-
ment of the possibility to include both opportunity for schooling and
feasibility for parents to support further schooling.

Measures of Demand: Dependent Variables

Two categories of the demand for education are examined. The first is
the family's demand for an amount, or level of schooling for children or
quantitative demand. The second is the family's demand for one kind of
education rather than another, in terms of the agency which sponsors
the schooling (government versus non government), the religious or non
religious affiliation of the schooling, and the vocational or general nature
of the education. These are regarded as measures of qualitative demand.
272 R. PEARSE

Quantitative Demand

1. Intention to Continue is a measure of the family's intention that

the child now enrolled in primary school will continue to high school.
The variable is therefore a measure of aspiration rather than of actual
current demand, of desire rather than capacity to utilize secondary school-
ing, and pertains to a specific individual child. The index has values 1 to 4
indicative of strength of intention from no intention to strong intention.
2. Number of School Age Children Not Attending School is a meas-
ure of number of children of school age in the family who do not attend
school. A high value on this measure indicates low demand for school-
ing. The measure is a crude one in that it makes no allowance for the
number of children of school age in the family, but it does represent a
measure of the family's total demand for all its children.
3. Average Years of Schooling for School Age Children is a measure
of the years of schooling per school age child in the family. It was de-
rived by attributing to each child who had reached school age a value
for the number of years schooling, and calculating an average value for
all children in the family, s This measure is expected to represent average
aggregate demand for a family in terms of school years, and to discrim-
inate finely between families in that each score takes into account the
number of school age children.

Qualitative Demand
1. Demand for "State" versus "Religious" School for the Family.
This is a ratio of the total number of years in religious schools of all
children in the family divided by the total number of years in State
schools of all children in the family. It is a measure of actual aggregate
demand for religious education and State education by the family.
2. Demand for Vocational versus Academic Schooling for the Family.6
This is a ratio of the total number of years spent by children of the fam-
ily in vocational schools, divided by the total number of years spent by
children in academic schools. It is a measure of actual aggregate demand
for vocational and general education. 7

The Method of Analysis

The purpose of the analysis is to identify, from the set of 16 independent
variables, those variables which can be used to predict the various meas-
AN INDONESIAN CASE STUDY 273

ures of aspiration and of actual demand, and to identify those combina-

tions of variables which enable the maximum amount of variance in these
measures to be predicted. Where variance cannot be predicted on the
basis of the available variables, their performance will be used, in con-
junction with other possible variables, to provide clues as to further var-
iables which can be sought to increase the degree of prediction.
The statistical procedure chosen for this exploration is a standard step-
wise multiple regression analysis. 8 For each prediction independent var-
iables were run against each of the dependent variables to yield a subset
which best predict the dependent variable. The subset chosen (and shown
in each table) is the subset formed by the addition of variables until the
addition of further variables increases the sample mean square error for
the equation. 9 All variables examined were continuous, ordinal, or, if
categorical were in two categories, that is, vector form.
The report for each analysis first identifies the independent variables
which are correlated with the measure of demand, and then shows a table
which displays the subset of variables which predict demand. Part (i) of
each table displays the equation which predicts the maximum degree of
variance possible without the addition of variables which increase the
sample mean square error. In addition to the b coefficients for the equa-
tion, the table also displays the beta weights for each variable to repre-
sent the relative sensitivity of the dependent variable to each of the in-
dependent variables, l° Part (ii) of each table displays the squared mul-
tiple correlation which represents the amount of variance accounted for
at each step, and, for the last step, the total variance predicted by the
equation.

Results

A. Prediction of Quantitative Demand

Prediction in this case required prediction
A . 1 . I n t e n t i o n to C o n t i n u e .
of the family's intention for the child who was currently enrolled in a
primary (Madrassah) school, to continue to secondary school. Independ-
ent variables which correlate significantly (at the 5% level of confidence)
with intention are use of a state ("secular") school (r = .18), family pos-
sessions (r = .18), and perceived possibility to continue (r = .42). Low
correlation coefficients were obtained for area (.15), utility of Madrassah
(.14), sex of the child (.10) and mother's education (.10).
A combination of five variables enables 35% of the variance in this in-
tention to be predicted, before the addition of further variables increases
274 e...PEARSE

the error term. The coefficients, F values, and beta weights for this com-
bination is shown in Table 1(i). Table l(ii) shows the successive a m o u n t
of variance accounted for by the addition o f single variables up to and
including this combination of five.

Table 1. Intention for Child in Madrassah to Continue

(i) Equation b
Variable Coefficient Beta F to Remove
(Constant 1.917)
LOCATION .106 .314 11.74
EDUCATION (M) -.074 - .252 4.00
SEX - .229 .080 4.28
UTILITY .208 .087 5.32
POSSIBILITY - .490 - .583 46.94
(ii) Increases in Variance Accounted for
Step Number Variable Squared
Entered Into Multiple
Equation Correlation
1 POSSIBILITY .181
2 AREA .276
3 UTILITY .309
4 SEX .331
5 EDUCATION (M) .3 56

Families' perceptions of the possibility the child can continue accounts

for the largest part of the total variance predicted by the equation. These
perceptions are a more powerful predictor than the indicator of the eco-
nomic characteristics of the families (family possessions) which corre-
lates with intentions. The population density of the area in which fami-
lies live accounts for further variability in the family's intention for the
child to continue.
Parental attitude toward the usefulness of the children's present
schooling predicts intention whereas objective family characteristics do
not. The level of the mother's education predicts a small additional a-
m o u n t of variance; however, the level or kind o f the father's occupation
and the level of the father's education do not correlate with the inten-
tion.
The sex of the child does predict a small proportion o f the variance in
addition, but the age of the child does not. It seems that the decision to
AN INDONESIAN CASE STUDY 27 5

continue the child or not is made independently of the age (and present
level of schooling) of the child which suggests that the intention is little
influenced by the level of children's performance at school.
Inspection of the beta values in table l(ii) indicates the extent to
which a change of one standard deviation in the predictor variable is as-
sociated with a change of one standard deviation in the dependent var-
iable, that is, provides an indication of the sensitivity of the dependent
variable to change in the independent variable. Changes in perception of
opportunity, changes in population density and in mother's education
remain in the same order of importance on this criterion.
The prediction of families' intentions which can be made with these
variables requires a combination of variables which reflect families' per-
ceptions of opportunity, which appear to subsume some indicators of
family access to land and possessions, the location of families in terms
of areas of higher or lower population density, the level of education of
the mother, the sex of the child, and families' attitude toward the use-
fulness of the child's current schooling. That is, prediction requires a
combination of objective economic and residence characteristics, an
achieved characteristic of the family (mother's education), an objective
characteristic of the child (sex), family perceptions as to the opportunity
for further education and attitudes towards the value of current school-
ing for the child.
A.2. Prediction of Non-attendance. The dependent variable in this case
is a crude measure of families' demand-the number of school age child-
ren in the family who have not been enrolled in school. It was expected
to vary closely with indicators of the economic level of the family and
with the strength of the relation between education and income earning
which in turn can be expected to vary as between town (non farming)
and village (farming) residence. 11 In fact, none of the indicators of the
economic level of the family correlated significantly (at the .05 level of
confidence) with this measure. The relation between the land owned by
families approached significance (r = -.17), as did residence in town or
village (r = -.16), but level of father's occupation did not.
Significant correlations were found between non attendance and po-
pulation density (-.36), indicating higher degrees of non attendance to
be associated with lower density. This is probably indicative of larger
distances between home and school. The correlation between non attend-
ance and the number of children in a family (.20) could indicate that
families with more children to support cannot maintain them all at
school. The correlation between non attendance and attitudes toward
276 R. WAV.SE

the usefulness of a Madrassah education (-.23), suggests that parental

values also play an important role. The correlation between one index of
family economic standing, house type, was significant (r -- .18), and an-
other, land, was just below (r = . 17), suggesting that the family's eco-
nomic standing does predict.
A combination of three variables-area, the number of children in the
family and the age or maturity of the family-enables prediction of 20%
of the variance in non attendance, as shown in Table 2.

Table 2. Non-attendance of Children

(i) Equation b
Variable Coefficient Beta F to Remove
(Constant 2.03 8)
AREA - .231 - .370 19.559
AGE - .217 - .174 4.065
CHILDREN -.150 .253 7.554

(ii) Increases in Variance Accounted For

Step Number Variable Squared
Entered Into Multiple
Equation Correlation
1 AREA .12 8
2 CHILDREN .173
3 AGE .203

Thus access to schooling, and demographic characteristics of the fam-

ily, predict non attendance to a small degree, but economic characteris-
tics of the family do not add significantly to the prediction. This result
would be consistent with the inference that the level of demand is little
influenced by family income independent of the maturity and number
of children in the family. That is, the level of demand is not strongly in-
fluenced by economic differences between the families.
A.3. Prediction of School Attendance. This measure of demand is a
more sensitive representation of the amount of education utilized by a
family than the previous index in that it is based on the average number
of years of attendance of all school age children in the family. Table 3
shows the distribution of index values:
AN INDONESIAN CASE STUDY 277

T a b l e 3. Distribution of Index Values for Mean School Years, Rural Families

Index Value %
0 0.0
1- 2 16.5
3 -4 42.1
5- 6 33.9
7- 8 6.6
9 0.9
100.0

The range is clearly wide, and the mid point (index 4, approximately
four years of primary schooling) corresponds to the level at which the
highest incidence of drop out is found in Indonesian schools. Because all
children in these families had not completed schooling the actual com-
pleted family demand could be expected to be higher than is shown.
Predictor variables which correlated significantly with average years
of schooling were area (.20), town-village residence (.23), land owner-
ship (.19), family possessions (.29) and age of household head (.30).
None of the variables associated with achieved characteristics of the fam-
ily-father's occupational level (.00), father's occupational type (.00),
father's educational level (.02) or mother's educational level (.08)-cor-
related significantly with this index, neither did the variables indicative
of differences in family attitudes toward the value of schooling-useful-
ness of the Madrassah (. 11), and enrolment of the child in both state
and Madrassah schools (.06).
The lack of relationship between variability in parental occupation
and education and variability in average demand between families is sur-
prising, but consistent with the result for demand as measured by non
attendance of children, and as measured by the intention to continue
an individual child at school.
The extent to which the average level of demand of families can be
predicted as summarised in Table 4.
Twenty-four percent of the variance is predicted by a combination of
four variables. No one variable was associated with any but a small pro-
portion of the total variance but each variable made a similar contribu-
tion to prediction.
278 R. PEARSE

Table 4. Average Number of School Years per Child of School Age

(i) Equation b
Variable Coefficient Beta F to Remove
(Constant - .32)
COMMUNITY 1.556 .243 7.562
AGE .369 .233 6.617
POSSESSIONS .274 .306 12.215
HOUSE OWNERSHIP - .481 - .229 6.767
(ii) Increases in Variance Accounted for
Step Number Variable Squared
Entered Into Multiple
Equation Correlation
1 POSSESSIONS .084
2 COMMUNITY .158
3 HOUSE OWNERSHIP .190
4 AGE .239

For the prediction of average levels of consumption by families, dif-

ferences in residence as between town and village are more important
than difference in areas, in terms of population densities. The measures
of family income levels-possessions and ownership of a h o u s e - d o pre-
dict average consumption, whereas they do not predict non schooling.
Interestingly, however, each variable acids independent prediction which
indicates that one or both measures a family characteristic in addition
to income. Speculatively, house ownership may indicate family security,
as well as income, and, as earlier suggested, possessions may indicate a
modern outlook by the family. The age of the family again predicts the
level of demand. Older families should tend to yield higher values for
average years of schooling because they have more children who have
completed schooling than younger ones. However, the higher values may
be brought about by the higher incomes which are associated with older
parents. If so, it is independent of the other measures of income.
A.4. Summary o f the Prediction o f Quantitative Demand. The level of
prediction of quantitative demand for schooling by families with the var-
iables used is low. Prediction of the family's intention for continuation
for an individual child has been possible to a higher degree than predic-
tion of the actual consumption of education for all children in families.
AN INDONESIAN CASE STUDY 279

This is perhaps because the intention, being for an individual child, al-
lowed measures of more specific attitudes than the measures of aggre-
gate attendance, or it may be that actual attendance is less predictable
than intention because it depends for realization on the level of income
and economic security of the family. The small contribution which eco-
nomic indices made to the prediction of actual demand, however, would
not be consistent with the latter interpretation.
Of the variables associated with quantitative demand indices, the var-
iables which represent location of the family are useful in predicting
demand. The level of population density, which reflects potential access
to schools, is significantly correlated with each, and predicts intention
and non attendance independently of othervariables. However, it is less
important than town and village differences for the prediction of average
attendance. Differences in town and village location predict only average
levels of demand independently of the population density of the area.
These two variables do not combine as independent predictors, suggest-
ing that within rural areas, town and village residence is not associated
with different levels of demand for education by the population.
Variables indicative of family structure were correlated with and pre-
dicted family demand. Age of the household head correlates with non
attendance and average length of attendance but the number of children
in the family correlates only with non attendance. Both combine as in-
dependent variables to predict non attendance, which indicates that age
of the family predicts independently of association with the number of
children in the family. This independence indicates that the association
between age of the household head and average length of attendance by
children is not a result of the tendency of older families to have more
children, but of other associations between demand and age, possibly
the tendency of older breadwinners to have higher incomes, as noted
above.
Of the indicators of families' economic conditions, the amount of
land owned correlates with average demand and approaches significance
with non attendance, and the number of possessions correlates with in-
tention and average years of attendance. Only the number of rural pos-
sessions acts as an independent predictor in a predictor set, in which
case it subsumes land ownership. Further refinement of these two var-
iables does seem to be warranted. Father's level of occupation, and kind
of education, do not correlate with, or independently predict any of the
measures of quantitative demand, contrary to expectation and despite
reasonable variability in these variables. Within this rural sample, drawn
280 R. PEARSE

from a number of provinces, fathers' occupation is not related to the

level of demand.
As a summary generalization, then, it can be said that for this rural
sample the level of demand is a function of many kinds of factors, to
include the supply of school places in an appropriate location, the ma-
turity of the family, the number of children in the family, the wealth of
the family. Contrary to expectation, variations in occupation within the
rural sample, and variations in the levels of parental education are not
associated with changes in the level of demand. The relative importance
of these variables which do predict the level of demand, as shown by the
beta weights in Table 4, is wealth and security of the family, the place of
residence, and the age or maturity of the parents.

B. Prediction of Aspects of Qualitative Demand

B.1. Demand for Religious or State Schools for Children in the family.
The dependent variable to be predicted in this case is the ratio of the
number of years' schooling in a Madrassah to the number of years' school-
ing in a government school, summed across all children in the family. It
represents family choices which are very important for the prediction of
future needs for each type of school.
Variables which correlate significantly with the demand for religious
schooling are area (r -- .39), the number of children in the family (-.47),
family possessions (-.20) and house ownership (-.24). It is apparent that
increases in population density go with greater demand for religious
schools whereas increases in family income go with a decreasing use of
religious schools. Increases in the number of children go with increasing
use of "secular" schooling by these families. Father's occupation, and
the level of parental education do not correlate with the choice of reli-
gious or secular schooling.
A combination of two variables enables prediction of 39% of families'
propensity to use religious or "secular" schooling, as shown in Table 5.
B. 2. Demand for Vocational versus Academic Education for Children
in the Family. The dependent variable to be predicted is the ratio of
years of schooling in vocational secondary schools to the number of
years of schooling in academic schools, summed across all children of
school age in the family.
Significant correlations obtained between the dependent variable and
occupation (in terms of government or private) (r = .19), area (r -- -.68),
urban-rural residence (r = -.37), age of family (r = -.27), number of
ANINDONESIANCASESTUDY 281

children (r = .18), rural possessions (r = .24), family judgment of the use-

fulness of religious primary schools (r = -.45), while correlations between
father's occupation (in terms of level) and father's and mother's educa-
tion do not reach significance.

Table 5. Prediction of Family Use of Religious or "Secular" Education

(i) Equation b
Variable Coefficient Beta F to Remove
(Constant 7.241 )
AREA .815 .407 28.6
CHILDREN - 1.004 - .402 40.9
(ii) Increases in Variance Accounted for
Step Number Variable Squared
Entered Into Multiple
Equation Correlation
1 CHILDREN .23
2 AREA .39

The demand for vocational rather than academic schooling is related

to a broader range of variables than the other aspects of demand meas-
ured.
A combination of eight variables, as shown in Table 6, enables 80% of
the variance in demand to be predicted.
The area in which a family lives, maturity of the family, and indices
of family income, particularly the quality of housing, are major contri-
butions to the prediction of vocational demand, but, in addition to these,
attitudes toward the utility of a religious primary education also contri-
bute considerably. This indicates the demand for vocational schooling
is influenced by attitudes toward the utility of education over and above
the capacity of the family to pay for it, and the supply of opportunity.
In general, in this rural sample, the demand for vocational education ap-
pears to follow increases in wealth, at least as indicated by the quality of
house construction and possession of land. That is, rural wealth goes
with a higher level of demand for vocational schooling where it is avail-
able.
Although the level of prediction attained for this index of demand is
high, at least relative to the prediction of other kinds of demand, the
greatest amount of variance is predicted by the supply of schooling. It is
282 R. PEARSE

n o t e w o r t h y that the higher level o f prediction has been attained largely

by the power of this single variable to predict, rather than by greater
contribution from other variables, b u t also by a contribution from a
measure o f attitudes toward different kinds o f schooling, rather than
from the structural characteristics o f families. This latter quality suggests
that it will be difficult to predict changes in demand from changes in
objective family characteristics.

Table 6. Prediction of Family Use of Vocational or Academic Secondary Schooling

(i) Equation b
Variable Coefficient Beta F to Remove
(Constant 4.023)
AREA - .311 - . 13 206.8
AGE - .327 - .27 65.0
EDUCATION (M) .115 .06 17.6
CHILDREN .105 .04 28.2
LAND .095 .07 5.1
POSSESSIONS .096 .04 15.6
HOUSE TYPE .269 .47 9.3
UTILITY - . 200 - .25 9.6
(ii) Increase in Variance Accounted for
Step Number Variable Squared
Entered Into Multiple
Equation Correlation
1 AREA .462
2 AGE •593
3 CHILDREN .664
4 POSSESSIONS .722
5 EDUCATION (M) .742
6 HOUSE TYPE .767
7 UTILITY .785
8 LAND .796

Conclusions and Suggestions for Further Research

The attempt to predict variability in the level o f demand for schooling
of these rural Indonesian families from the variables available has dem-
onstrated the importance o f factors indicative o f the provision o f educa-
AN INDONESIAN CASE STUDY 283

tional opportunity, factors which represent structural characteristics of

the family, and the family's economic capacity.
The relative importance of these variables for the prediction of aver-
age demand is measures of supply, then measures of the wealth and
security of the family, then urban or rural residence, then the age of
the parents or maturity of the family as a child bearing, income earning
unit.
Prediction of qualitative demand for religious or state schools, voca-
tional or academic schools has been more satisfactory. A number of var-
iables are correlated with both measures of demand, including the "ma-
turity" of the family, the number of children in the family, and the fam-
ily's possessions. Differences in town-rural residence correlates with the
demand for vocational or academic schooling. With the exception of the
number of children, however, their effect in prediction is washed out by
the variable of area, which represents the provision of opportunity. That
is, the difference between the provision of schools in different areas does
more to predict differences in demand than do differences between fam-
ilies. It is also true that families with more children, given the conditions
of supply in different places, do tend to use religious schools and voca-
tional schools more than families with fewer children.
A number of characteristics of the families which were expected to
predict the demand for education, have been conspicuously unrelated
to demand. Variations in the level of father's education and mother's
education did not correlate with the measures of quantitative demand
or with measures of qualitative demand, though variability in father's
education and in mother's education (both from no school to junior
secondary graduate) existed. 12 Father's occupational classification also
failed to be correlated with the level of demand although variability in
occupation was evident. It seems that the level of the demand and the
kind of demand of this rural population is homogeneous across the
existing occupational structure. It follows that changes in the propor-
tion of people in these categories of occupation as a result of economic
change would not, per se, relate to changes in the level or type of de-
mand.
Urban or rural residence was correlated with both measures of quan-
titative demand, and also with the use of vocational versus academic
secondary schooling, but unexpectedly, it did not predict demand inde-
pendently of other variables, chiefly the variable of area, which repre-
sents population density and the location of schools near population.
Again it seems that among this rural sample, the demand level does not
284 R. PEARSE

vary as between small town and countryside once given a relatively equal
provision of schooling in the two locations.
The relatively high power of variations in the supply of education,
and low power o f family variables (excepting wealth and the n u m b e r of
d e p e n d e n t children) suggests that prediction of d e m a n d might best be
accomplished by giving separate consideration to prediction based on
supply characteristics and then within different levels of supply, rather
than between different levels o f supply by the analysis o f family char-
acteristics. That is, prediction may be enhanced by holding conditions
of supply relatively constant, as, for example, would be accomplished
by the separate analysis o f data in particular areas.
The level o f prediction of various aspects o f d e m a n d attained in this
study based on a small sample of rural families is low, and the relation-
ships explored fall short of the goal to specify variables which might be
used to provide an alternative to the use of trends in participation ratios
as a basis for the projection of future demand. Further refinement of
variables is considered to be one necessary line of further research.

NOTES

1. Details from Badan Pengembangan Pendidikan (1973) Instrurnen Studi Sekolah-

sekolah non P. dan K., Jakarta, pp. 7-8.
2. This office has become The Office of Research and Development in Education
and Culture (BPPPK).
3. Small increases in rural Indonesian family income with increases in the age of the
household head (within the age range 20 to 50) are shown in a study by Kelley, A.C.
and Williamson, J.G. "Household Savings Behavior in Developing Economies: The
Indonesian Case", (unpublished), A.N.U., 1967, p. 16.
4. The potential importance of land ownership to distinguish between farmers is
indicated by an analysis of land ownership in Central Javanese villages (Penny &
Singarimbun, 1972) in which 37% of families own no land, 47% own 33% of the
land, 14% own 40% of the land and 2% own 27% of the land.
5. A child who had dropped out of primary school was given the value 4, a value
equal to the modal national value for drop-outs from primary school, one continu-
ing a value of 5, one who had completed primary school and then left a value of 6,
and so on for those who had attended higher levels of education. Responses from
three separate questions in the original interview were combined to determine the
index values.
6. Specifically, vocational is domestic science, technical, commercial high schools,
and teacher training; academic is general education high schools.
7. All years in primary schooling are counted as years of general education.
AN INDONESIANCASE STUDY 285

8. The computer program used for the analysis was BMDO 2R.
9. For the validation of this criterion as a stepping rule see Bendel, B. and Afifi,
A.A. "Comparison of Stepping Rules in Forward Stepwlse Regression", Abstracts,
Biometrics 31, June, 1975.
10. The beta coefficients are here used in the sense of regression coefficients based
on standard scores (see Kerlinger and Pedhazur, 1973:64).
11. See Bruner, E.M. and Bruner, E.C. (1971) "AnthropolOgical Perspectives on
Primary Education in Indonesia", unpublished report, Jakarta: Office of Educational
Development.
12. The median for fathers was 4-5 years of schooling, and for mothers 2-3 years;
ranges for both are nil to completion of high school. The distribution for fathers is:
no schooling 40.4%, attended primary school but did not complete 38.6%, com-
pleted primary school 15.6%, attended secondary school 4.6%.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Badan Pengembangan Pendidikan (B.P.P.), Instrumen S tudi Sekolah-sekolah non P.

dan K, Jakarta: B.P.P., 1973.
Blaug, M., An Introduction to the Economics of Education, Harmondsworth, Middle-
sex: Penguin, 1972.
Coombs, P.H., The World Educational Crisis, New York: Oxford University Press,
1968.
Harbison, F.H., & Meyers, C.A., Education, Manpower and Economic Growth, New
York: McGraw-Hill, 1964.
Kelley, A.C., & Williamson, J.G., "Household Savings Behavior in Developing Econ-
omies: The Indonesian Case" (unpublished), 1967.
Kerlinger, F.N., & Pedhazur, E.J., Multiple Regression in Behavioral Research, New
York: Holt, Rinehart, 1973.
Parnes, H.S., Forecasting Educational Needs for Economical Social Development,
Paris: O.E.C.D., 1962.
Penny, D.H., & Singarimbun, M., "A Case Study of Rural Poverty", Bulletin of
Indonesian Economic Studies, 8 (1972), no. 1.
Sundrum, R.M., "Household Income Patterns", Bulletin of Indonesian Economic
Studies, 10 (1974), no. 1.