Evaluation of the Smart Indonesia Program as a Policy to Improve Equality in Education

Inequality of access to education is still a major challenge faced by the Indonesian government and is caused by cost-related issues. Therefore, the government implements the Smart Indonesia Program (SIP) to overcome problems related to costs and increase equitable access to education. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the implementation of the SIP in the Central Java province, Indonesia by examining samples obtained from 20 vocational schools consisting of 1413 students as respondents and 50 informants. The key informant was the school superintendent of the Regional Education Office VII of the Central Java province, which was analyzed with a context, input, process, and product (CIPP) evaluation. The results of this study found that in the sampling area, the implementation of the Smart Indonesia Card (SIC) program was considered to be very good, with an average context point of 82.3% (very good), an input point of 83.4% (very good), a process point of 87.7% (very good), and a product point of 90% (very good). However, two main obstacles that were identified have the potential to affect the effectiveness of (SIC) distribution, including (1) data synchronization between relevant stakeholders and (2) evaluation and reporting systems that did not refer to the principle of accountability. It is concluded that the current scheme does not refer to the principle of accountability.