doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1596/40365

Person:
Afkar, Rythia

HHCDR, The World Bank

Last updated: March 20, 2025

Biography

Rythia Afkar is an economist with the World Bank’s Human Capital Project. She is based in Washington, DC, and engages with national governments and international organizations to help countries build, protect, and utilize their human capital. Her work focuses on various areas, including quality of education, public finance, and gender issues. She previously worked on education operations and research with the East Asia and Pacific unit and on poverty and social assistance with the poverty team in Indonesia. Her recent policy-oriented research focuses on improved efficiency of education expenditure in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. She holds a doctorate in economics from the University of Bonn and received master’s degrees in quantitative economics from the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.

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Publication Search Results

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Fixing the Foundation: Teachers and Basic Education in East Asia and Pacific
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-09-20) Afkar, Rythia; Béteille, Tara; Breeding, Mary E.; Linden, Toby; Mason, Andrew D.; Mattoo, Aaditya; Pfutze, Tobias; Sondergaard, Lars M.; Yarrow, Noah
Countries in middle-income East Asia and the Pacific were already experiencing serious learning deficits prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-related school disruptions have only made things worse. Learning poverty -- defined as the percentage of 10-year-olds who cannot read and understand an age-appropriate text -- is as high as 90 percent in several countries. Several large Southeast Asian countries consistently perform well below expectations on adolescent learning assessments. This report examines key factors affecting student learning in the region, with emphasis on the central role of teachers and teaching quality. It also analyzes the role education technologies, which came into widespread use during the pandemic, and examines the political economy of education reform. The report presents recommendations on how countries can strengthen teaching to improve learning and, in doing so, can enhance productivity, growth, and future development in the region.
What I Really Want: Policy Maker Views on Education in East Asia Pacific
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-10-17) Cahu, Paul; Yarrow, Noah; Breeding, Mary E.; Afkar, Rythia
This paper reports the views and perceptions of randomly selected education policy makers in the East Asia Pacific region, based on surveys of 651 senior public officials in 14 middle-income countries. The findings show that officials tend to prioritize increasing secondary school completion over improving learning quality, and they severely underestimate learning poverty and do so by a larger margin than officials in other countries. Officials were most likely to cite system capacity as the primary constraint to improving learning. The findings show that officials’ support for gender equality and disability inclusion is high. Interviewed officials tend to oppose violence against students and prefer to invest in in-service teacher training or early-grade reading compared to other options, such as EdTech or inclusion for students with disabilities. This mix of alignment and misalignment between policy makers’ goals and the stated goals of development partners can inform future engagement in policy dialogue, analysis, and information campaigns.
Inclusion in Indonesia's Education Sector: A Subnational Review of Gender Gaps and Children with Disabilities
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-06) Surbakti, Soedarti; Cooper, Rachel; Afkar, Rythia; Yarrow, Noah
This study seeks to examine gender gaps and disability issues in education in Indonesia, and to suggest policy actions as well as future analytical and operational work to address these differences. Field visits were conducted to uncover drivers of gender differences, as well as issues of social inclusion, and to explore policy approaches to improve learning outcomes and educational achievement for all children. Secondary data analysis shows that Indonesia has demonstrated great progress on gender parity in education; however, the national averages mask important variations at the subnational level, including variations of significant male and female disadvantage between and within provinces. Women are still underrepresented in school and government leadership positions, as well as the workforce overall. Despite women making up the majority of the teaching workforce, men dominate the management and leadership roles in schools. The study also reveals significant challenges and offers policy recommendations to ensure inclusivity in education for children with disabilities.
Rewrite the Future: How Indonesia's Education System Can Overcome the Losses from the COVID-19 Pandemic and Raise Learning Outcomes for All
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-09) Afkar, Rythia; Yarrow, Noah
The policy note presents an updated estimate of learning loss due to COVID-19 (coronavirus) -related school closures in Indonesia, taking into account the Government of Indonesia~^!!^s mitigating measures. Our revised estimates show that school closures precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic could result in a total loss of between 0.9 and 1.2 years of learning adjusted schooling and on average between 25 and 35 points on student’s PISA reading scores. The extent of learning loss is determined more by the effectiveness of distance learning than it is by the duration of school closure in the time period investigated. We identify a reduction of between 408 US dollars and 578 US dollars per student in future annual earnings equivalent to a present value loss in lifetime earnings for all students of between 253 and 359 billion US dollars, or 24 to 34 percent of 2020 GDP. To accelerate learning and to recover some of these losses in the short-term, schools and teachers can assess what each of their students has been able to learn while schools were closed and use differentiated plans to support each child to accelerate their learning. In the longer term, the Government can support the increased resilience of education service delivery to protect against future shocks from pandemics, climate change and other threats.
Revealing How Indonesia’s Subnational Governments Spend Their Money on Education: Indonesia Subnational Education Public Expenditure Review 2020
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-11-16) Luque, Javier; Nomura, Shinsaku; Marshall, Jeffery; Afkar, Rythia
Indonesia’s most recent amendment to its decentralization legislation transferred a far greater role in education management and service delivery to subnational governments. However, little information has been made available on how subnational governments conduct the planning, allocation, and execution of their education budgets—a key driver of increased human capital development. This study aims to fill this essential information gap by assessing the activities implemented by subnational governments as they fulfill their mandate in the education sector. Data collected from January to June 2019 in a survey of 27 districts and cities spread over eight provinces, as well as an analysis of national spending data.
Estimates of COVID-19 Impacts on Learning and Earning in Indonesia: How to Turn the Tide
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-08) Masood, Eema; Afkar, Rythia; Yarrow, Noah
The authors use the World Bank’s recently developed country tool for simulating Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) impacts on learning and schooling outcomes and data from the forthcoming Indonesia education service delivery indicator survey to simulate and contextualize the potential impact of COVID-19 school closures on learning outcomes, proficiency levels, enrollments, and expected earnings for Indonesian students in primary and secondary school. The authors estimate that Indonesian children have already lost 11 points on the program for international student assessment (PISA) reading scale and United States (U.S.) 249 dollars in future annual individual earnings due to the four-month closure period from March 24 to the end of July 2020. The authors provide estimates for six- and eight-month closure scenarios, showing that these losses are expected to increase in the coming months as schools gradually re-open (and possibly re-close). To turn the tide of these human capital losses, districts, provinces, and the central ministries should prepare for both improved face-to-face instruction, as well as improved quality of distance education, in order to recapture lost learning and improve overall system quality and resilience to possible future shocks.
Improving Toilet Hygiene and Handwashing Practices During and Post-COVID-19 Pandemic in Indonesian Schools
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-06) Kumala, Citra; Nomura, Shinsaku; Afkar, Rythia
This policy note examines a rapid situation analysis of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) facilities in Indonesian schools using quantitative and qualitative data, including a review of relevant regulations. It discusses policy implications related to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic response and its implications for achieving universal access to basic WASH facilities in schools by 2030, under the Sustainable Development Goals. It is found that 8 percent of MoECRT schools and 20 percent of MoRA primary schools have no functional toilets for students. The average number of toilets, 58 students to 1 toilet in primary schools, is not up to the international standards of 25:1 ratio. Twenty-two percent of MoECRT schools have no access to water and 47 percent reported no soap nor running water. The policy note also identifies 4 areas of policy gaps and corresponding recommendations to respond to the current situation and its causes.
Measuring the Quality of MoRA's Education Services
(World Bank, Jakarta, 2020-11) Masood, Eema; Gauthier, Bernard; Afkar, Rythia; Yarrow, Noah
We visited 350 primary schools and collected data from 1,838 teachers and 3,368 Grade 4 students to assess the quality of education service delivery in a nationally representative sample of schools of the Ministry of Religious Affairs and a smaller sample of schools of the Ministry of Education and Culture. We found that students were on average 1.5 years behind the learning level expected for 4th grade, representing a learning crisis. These low levels of learning were associated with high levels of teacher absence, low levels of availability of textbooks, and low levels of teacher subject knowledge and pedagogy skills but high levels of student satisfaction. We find higher levels of learning for students who have ever attended early childhood education, those who have eaten breakfast on the day of the assessment, as well as for female students. We offer some recommendations for addressing these challenges, drawing from schools with higher levels of student learning in the sample.
Who Learns What in Basic Education? Evidence from Indonesia
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-04-30) de Ree, Joppe; Khairina, Noviandri; Afkar, Rythia
Indonesia consistently fares poorly on the international tests like PISA and TIMSS. To help diagnosing the causes of poor learning we track student achievement across 9 years in basic education. We find that 40 percent of students do not learn the basics in the early grades of primary school (recognizing 2-digit numbers by 2nd grade, and ordering 4-digit numbers by 4th grade). The authors also find that schools do not cover the complete Indonesian curriculum. Only few students learn how to calculate the surface area of a triangle by 5th grade, the rules about the order of operations, and to complete exercises embedded in stories. Poor and incomplete coverage of the primary curriculum helps explain the low levels of student achievement authors observed in secondary school. Our analysis also provides directions for future research. We observed a large catching-up effect in learning in 6th grade. A plausible explanation for this pattern is the increased pressure on schools, teachers and students to perform well on the high-stakes national exams. The fact that the system can produce learning once (all) actors are sufficiently motivated, suggests that 1.) performance pressure might help, and 2.) that low levels of teacher’s knowledge and skills are currently not a major binding constraint to learning in Indonesia.
Learning for All: Towards Quality Education for Enhanced Productivity and Economic Growth in Indonesia
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-02) Fasih, Tazeen; Tomlinson, Heather; Afkar, Rythia
This note synthesizes the findings of various analytical pieces conducted by the World Bank in the education sector in Indonesia. The World Bank has supported the knowledge base on education in Indonesia through several studies and technical assistance partnerships, which are noted at the end of this brief. The studies investigate various sub-sectors of education to effectively analyze critical issues in depth and recommend policy options.