In Indonesian, besides years of schooling, other indicators of educational achievement were the subjects studied (later called ‘educational disciplines’) and non-formal education. Non-formal education is an ad hoc education or training provided by government or private institutions to achieve specific purposes and arranged in non-structural institutions. Courses such as computers, electronics, English for escorting tourists and hair-dressing courses are non-formal education, because of the specific and practical characteristics of non-formal education, this type of education, as will be seen in this study, is also called ‘vocational training’. Educational disciplines and non-formal education also have different prices in the labour market and are taken by children of different sexes.
At the community level, social reproduction that affects sexual bias in educational attainment is reflected in the state’s educational provision and is more prevalent in schools where the curriculum is closely linked to occupational preparation, such as in vocational education and higher education (Pascall, 1986:115). In Indonesian, following Year 1 of the senior secondary school, options are given to children and their parents to choose between more general education for long-term investment or more vocational education for a quicker transition to employment. Children and parents apparently choose educational disciplines and types of non-formal education in line with their different types of investment, long term or short-term, and in line with the suitability of future work likely to result from the education discipline chosen for the sex of their children. Table 3.5 shows
the tendency for children with different socio-economic background, parental education in particular, and of different sexes tend to pursue different educational disciplines in formal as well as in non-formal education.
Children with lower parental education (below primary school) are more likely to pursue technical education (42 per cent), whereas children with high parental education qualification concentrated more on general and humanities education (38 and 40 per cent). So, there is a class segregation. Graduates from vocational education were expected by parents to find a job soon after they graduated from the senior high school, therefore most parents from lower social backgrounds preferred vocational to general education (Beeby, 1982: 28). Although Table 3.5 is not constructed according to a general - vocational education dichotomy, it also reflects this tendency.
Table 3.5
Educational disciplines of school leavers 15 to 29 years, by parent’s education and sex, in tree cities of Java, 1994.
Education disciplines of children Parental Background 1 2 3 4 Total % N Phi P Parents’ .130 ** education <Primary 28.9 26.8 42.3 2.0 100 149 Primary 37.1 25.7 35.8 1.5 100 545 Junior S 40.5 20.8 33.5 5.2 100 462 Senior S > 38.7 23.7 31.5 6.1 100 594 Sex .371 *** Females 42.0 35.8 17.1 5.1 100 829 Males 34.1 13.0 49.7 3.1 100 921
Source: ‘The Dynamic of Youth Education and Employment’, 1994. Note: 1 General & Humanity, 2. Economics, 3 Technology, and 4 Others. Herein after P refers to Pearson chi-square probability.
*, ** and *** see note on Table 3.3.
It is interesting to note that the proportion and the number of females with vocational training (45 per cent, or 682 out of 1503 female respondents) were higher than of males (31 per cent, or 476 out of 1497 male respondents - Table 3.6). Parents may have differentiated the chance of sons for continuing their formal education as long-term investment, while for their daughters, parents may gave
them short-term investment in vocational training. For both sons and daughters, however, the chance of having vocational training increased remarkably as their education levels increased, at least up to the senior secondary levels (Table 3.6). This means that young people who already have high educational qualifications are more likely to have non-formal education than those who are less educated. So, there is a tendency for human capital accumulation to be greater for a particular group of young people, those from high socio-economic background.
Table 3.6
The proportion of school leavers 15 to 29 years having vocational training by educational levels and sex, three cities of Java, 1994.
Males Females Both sexes
Levels of education % n % n % n Below primary 5.9 6 16.0 20 11.5 26 Primary 7.3 13 19.5 49 14.4 62 Junior secondary 10.9 30 22.5 65 16.8 95 Senior secondary 41.5 337 62.8 450 51.4 787 Tertiary 69.8 90 81.0 98 45.2 188 Total 31.7 476 45.5 682 38.6 1158
Source: ‘The Dynamics of Youth Education and Employment’, 1994.
From this situation it is clear that children’s educational attainment in terms of levels and disciplines, in formal as well as in non-formal education, is class and sex biased. In Table 3.7 it is also clear that females who were taking non- formal education were likely to have vocational courses such as book-keeping, secretarial studies and ‘cosmetology’ and manicure which usually direct them to low-level white collar occupations, while a majority of males (58 per cent) were attending language or computer courses, which were assumed to support them to gain more prestigious occupations. From this perspective, inequality and sex bias in employment opportunity are set up even before young people enter into the labour market.
Table 3.7.
Non -formal education of school leavers 15 to 29 years by respondent education and socio-economic background, three cities of Java, 1994.
Non Formal Education Lang uages +secre- tary Com puter Book- kee ping Others Total % N Phi P R e s p o n d e n t .542 *** e d u c a t io n <Primary 3.8 19.2 15.4 61.5 100 26 Primary 0.0 1.6 1.6 96.8 100 62 Junior S 3.2 10.8 9.7 76.3 100 93 Senior S 7.5 47.1 27.5 17.9 100 764 Tertiary 10.3 56.8 15.7 17.3 100 185 F a t h e r ’s .210 ** O c c u p a t io n Professional 10.5 43.9 21.1 24.6 100 57 Clerical 8.5 50.7 19.4 21.4 100 201 Trades 6.4 44.0 23.4 26.2 100 282 Services 7.9 42.9 23.2 26.0 100 177 Production 6.9 40.4 24.4 28.4 100 349 Farmers 1.6 20.3 15.6 62.5 100 64 P a r e n t s ’ .229 *** e d u c a t io n <Primary 5.2 31.3 23.5 40.0 100 115 Primary 5.3 34.1 23.5 37.2 100 358 Junior S 6.6 43.8 23.7 25.9 100 274 Senior S> 9.7 53.0 20.1 17.2 100 383 S e x o f .154 *** r e s p o n d e n t Males 9.8 48.3 16.7 25.2 100 460 Females 5.2 38.7 26.3 29.9 100 670
Source: ‘The Dynamic of Youth Education and Employment’, 1994. *, ** and *** see note on Table 3.3.