Indonesia’s Constitution requires that all children undertake nine years of basic education, and that this be financed by government; to this end, governments at all levels are required to devote at least 20% of their budgets to education. Responsibility for delivery of basic education rests mainly with local governments, which are almost entirely dependent on the central government for funds. There is enormous variation in the level of funding per capita across local governments, which is associated, in turn, with enormous differences in per capita education spending, calling into question the central government’s commitment to equality of access to schooling. This paper analyses, first, the determinants of education spending by local governments, and second, how differences in education spending affect enrolment rates. Simple OLS regression analyses are undertaken for the two types of local government (districts and municipalities) and for two separate years (2005 and 2010). Preliminary results show that education spending is indeed closely related to the availability of funding. And, since funding per capita has a strong negative relationship with population, higher populations are strongly associated with low per capita education spending, even though this goes against the ideal of equal access. On the other hand, enrolment rates are not closely related to education spending, but seem to be determined more by educational attainment of the adult population and average distance from school.