ABSTRAK
Meskipun perbaikan signifikan pada indikator tingkat partisipasi sekolah setelah sistem desentralisasi diterapkan di tahun 2001, aspek distribusi seperti ketimpangan capaian dan rendahnya kualitas pendidikan masih menjadi masalah utama sektor pendidikan di Indonesia. Penelitian ini bertujuan mengukur ketimpangan pendidikan menggunaka indeks Gini dan melihat efek pengaruh belanja publik pendidikan pada ketimpangan capaian serta kualitas pendidikan. Dengan menggunakan ruang lingkup 110 Kabupaten/kota di Pulau Jawa dari tahun 2007-2014, hasil menunjukkan bahwa indeks gini pendidikan mengalami tren yang menurun dan berfluktuasi. Selain itu, belanja publik pendidikan signifikan berpengaruh negatif pada gini pendidikan yang menunjukkan ketimpangan capaian. Adapun belanja publik pendidikan tidak seluruhnya signifikan pada peningkatan nilai Ujian Nasional sebagai indikator kualitas pendidikan (hanya pada nilai UN Matematika dan Bahasa Indonesia).

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ABSTRACT
Despite of positive outcome in enrollment rates of education after decentralization system was established in 2001, the distributional dimension such as inequality in educational attainment and quality of education among various regions are staggering in Indonesia. This study aims to measure the inequality of education by using Gini index and to examine the effects of public educational expenditure on educational attainment inequality and the quality of education. By using balanced panel data analysis covering 110 regions (cities and regencies) in Java Island from year 2007-2014, we found that gini education in Java experienced negative trend with some fluctuations over years. In addition, we revealed that public expenditure on education reduced inequality in educational attainment. However, public expenditure appears not to signicificantly influence national exam score for all subjects which represent quality of education (only positive significant on Math and Bahasa scores). Our research findings shed light on the important role of public expenditure on education to achieve the purpose of decentralization on education system.