In order to examine the development of basic education in Indonesia in a more in-depth and thorough way，this paper takes the quality of Chinese education as a reference and analyzes the achievements and shortcomings of basic education in Indonesia from the following three aspects：the performance of students in the international standardized test；the enrollment rate and teacher-student ratio；the propensity of public investment in education. A comparative analysis shows that the enrollment rate of primary and secondary schools in Indonesia is relatively high，and the teacher-student ratio is also at an ideal level，indicating that Indonesia provides relatively adequate educational opportunities for school-age children. Howerver，on the other hand，the quality of education is not satisfactory. Measured by international standards，it ranks at a rear position among countries participated the OECD PISA assessment program. Furthermore，the public investment in education is still insufficient despite it already account for around 20% of government spending budget，which shows a financial constraint to expand pubic educational investment. This is an important factor hindering the improvement of education quality.