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….

Indonesia Etc goes to the printers this week. That ought to mean I’m done, but I’ve been working on an electronic version of the book that will include embedded video, audio and photos as well as the full text. Here’s a taster video: The photos and things won’t get in the way of the text — they’ll be signalled by very analogue icons like this in the margin: but they will mean that readers can get closer to the sights…