Every three years, Indonesia’s education system goes through the ritual humiliation of the PISA tests, comparing the performance of 15 year-olds in 65 countries in reading, maths and science. Indonesia has more teachers per student than most much richer countries, and an amendment to the constitution guarantees that 20 percent of the national budget is spent on education. And yet the 2012 PISA results, released this week, show that Indonesia ranked at the bottom of the heap in maths and science, and did only marginally better in reading….

A couple of weeks ago, the weekly news magazine Tempo devoted several pages to a story about cops being involved in an on-line gambling ring; there was an editorial about the scandal, too, and it surprised me. The subject matter — crooked cops — was not remotely unexpected. What tripped me up was the language. The editorial began: “Ditangkapnya dua pejabat kepolisian Jawa Barat….” (The arrest of two senior police officers from West Java…) That was strange to this long-time…