A Critical Policy Analysis of Early Childhood Education (ECE) in Indonesia

Education is a basic right of citizens that shall be fulfilled by the state. Thus, as the embodiment of the fulfilment of the citizens’ rights, the state creates policies that are applicable to all components of the society regarding education. For early childhood education (ECE), in particular, the government has created a more flexible basic policy for early childhood education, thus providing people with the opportunity to participate in its implementation. This is also seen from the government’s effort in dividing the institutional forms into Formal and Non-formal ECE, thus the access to service to ECE is better reachable by everyone. Although there have been regulations on ECE in Indonesia, there are several policies that are incongruent with the practices on the field, such as the implementation and the students. Besides, the involvement of other parties in regulating early childhood education causes policies to overlap in its implementation. Based on the aforementioned, this article aims to provide an overview on early childhood education policies in Indonesia. By using literature study method regarding this critical policy analysis of early childhood education in Indonesia, this article is expected to provide a clear description on the reason behind the existence of early childhood education in Indonesia, including the involvement of other factors that support its policy making process.