The Objective and Policy of Education
The main program of the national education development in the effort to improve the quality of human resources is aimed at accelerating the Program of Nine-Year Compulsory Basic Education.

To achieve the development of national education program, the government has designed programs to increase school capacity and provide financial assistance for education of school age children from poor families. The target of development of the national education program in the year 2000 is to achieve the 118.6% rough participation number for the elementary school and ibtidaiyah Islamic elementary school, and 74.3% for the secondary school and Islamic secondary school. 

Achievements during 2000-2001
Elementary Education

• To support the Basic Education Program, scholarships have been made available for school age children from poor families.
• To increase schooling capacity, the government has constructed new school units and new classrooms, equipped with latest facilities and infrastructures.
• Efforts have been made to improve the quality of teachers, headmasters, education human resources and school supervisors through training.
• Curriculum has been improved with emphasis on the competence and adding new material on morality and democracy outlook.
• Government has established middle and vocational schools to prepare the students with skills, according to the characteristics of the area.
• The curriculum and Extracurricular activities prepare the students in areas such as Tourism, Agriculture, Industry, Marine, Forestry and Plantations. 

Secondary Schools

To enhance the relevance of higher education strive is directed to increasing the conformity of the programs for diploma, under graduate and post-graduate toward the demand of employment and the challenge of the future, especially concerning the number of professional qualification of the graduates. To enhance the education quality it is not only pursued through the input education quality (lecture, infrastructure and students), but also the enhancement of education process.

The success of education is depending on the education infrastructures and facilities, such as schools and teachers. Based on the data available at National Education Ministry there are: 

• 150,612 Primary schools with 1,141,168 teachers and 21,614,836 pupils.
• 20,866 Junior High Schools with 441,174 teachers and 7,600,093 pupils.

Comparing with the previous year, the number of junior high school level increased 0.47% and the number of Senior High School increased 2.03%