Indonesia faces a considerable challenge in providing an education workforce able to deliver high-quality teaching to every student across the country. The government is taking this challenge seriously and has introduced a number of key policies to raise the status and quality of teachers. The most significant of these policies is the Law on Teachers and Lecturers (Law No.14 2005), which confirmed teaching as a profession. The Law on Teachers and Lecturers requires all teachers to hold an academic bachelor’s degree and to successfully achieve certification. The professional allowances that accompany the new certification process have led to pay increases, which effectively double the income of certified teachers. This has aligned teachers’ status with other professions such as law and medicine and has provided effective incentives for teachers to upgrade their qualifications. Many pre-service lecturers, principals and teachers told the review team that the perception of teaching as a career is improving rapidly and that more students are now attracted to enter the profession because of these policies. A number of inefficiencies have also arisen from this reform, however, in terms of the system’s financing and the distribution of its teachers.