12-years education mandatory

Slamet Susanto, The Jakarta Post, Yogyakarta

The Yogyakarta municipality will implement a 12-year compulsory education program for students starting in the 2005-2006 academic year. The program is the first of its kind in the country.

"The Yogyakarta government has already successfully implemented the nine-year compulsory education program. Only 0.012 percent of students in Yogyakarta have not finished nine years of education, whereas the national standard is 1 percent. There is no reason not to extend the level of education from nine years to 12 years," Mayor Herry Zudianto told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

As an initial step, said Herry, the municipality would set aside Rp 3 billion (US$335,000) from the 2005 provincial budget. The funds would be used for scholarships for needy students.

"There should be no excuse anymore for young residents of Yogyakarta not to attend high school due to lack of funds," said Herry.

He added that another step being taken was to repeat the census to count the number of students attending school from outside the municipality.

"We will also issue a bylaw on education to give this policy a clear legal status. But the most important thing is the political will to support the program," he added.

Head of the Yogyakarta Education Office, Darno MA, said that this year the municipality had allocated a budget of about Rp 1.8 billion for the scholarship program to assist needy students.

"Students attending schools both within the city or outside it will be provided with scholarships so that they can complete nine years of education. To make the 12-year compulsory education program a success the scholarship budget will be increased to Rp 3 billion next year," said Darno.