Challenges in Implementing Impactful Education Policy in Remote Areas: A Pentagon Asset Analysis

Abstract

Impactful education policy seeks to equalize the quality of education across Indonesia, including underdeveloped, frontier, and outermost (3T) regions. In practice, aggregate figures often appear satisfactory even as conditions on the ground remain uneven, indicating that conventional policy implementation theory alone cannot fully explain why these barriers persist in remote areas. This study examines the challenges of implementing impactful education policy by combining George Edwards III's implementation theory with Pentagon Asset Analysis. The population comprised education units and education stakeholders in Nunukan Regency, North Kalimantan. The sample consisted of ten key informants — education office officials, supervisors, principals, teachers, school administrators, committee heads, community leaders, and parents — purposively selected from three locations: an island/border area and two interior areas. Data were analyzed qualitatively using the interactive model of Miles, Huberman, and Saldana, combined with Pentagon Asset scoring and strengthened through source triangulation and secondary BPS (Statistics Indonesia) data. The findings show that policy communication travels quickly but is not evenly understood, owing to limited connectivity; teacher ratios that appear adequate in aggregate conceal real distributional gaps; and bureaucratic structures have yet to adapt to geographic conditions. Pentagon Asset scores indicate that social assets are highest (4.07) and serve as the primary buffer, while physical assets (2.27) and financial assets (2.40) are the weakest. The study concludes that impactful education policy will only succeed in remote areas when bureaucratic reform proceeds hand in hand with the strengthening of local livelihood assets.