76 schools in urgent need of repair
76 schools in urgent need of repair
Ahmad Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Hundreds of state elementary school students from Bambu Apus
state elementary school in East Jakarta arrived at school Tuesday
to find their school had collapsed overnight.
The collapse follows a similar incident on Monday morning when
a laboratory roof at a state junior high school in Halim, East
Jakarta caved-in on Monday morning. Two weeks ago, a state
elementary school building in Kwitang also collapsed.
The incidents, which fortunately resulted in no injuries of
deaths, in turn follow the city administration's controversial
decision to only provide Rp 16 billion from the 2003 budget to
rebuild schools -- money that some say has been corrupted.
Bambu Apus school principal Suprianto said Tuesday that its
students were sent home and would miss at least two days school
before they were relocated to a nearby school.
"There was no heavy rain or strong winds at the time. We don't
know why the roof collapsed," the school's principal Suprianto
said on Tuesday, adding the roof had been renovated in 2000.
He said the school, built in 1970, had sought funding for
repairs but none had been provided.
The deputy principal of the junior high school, Andreas
Tupantar, said his 1,117 students could not use the laboratory,
but could still use the classrooms.
"This school is also old and needs renovation since it was
built in the 1970s," Andreas said.
The City Education Agency proposed this year to repair 76
school buildings in need of urgent upgrades. But the
administration only allocated Rp 16 billion of its budget to
renovate 10 elementary schools and six junior high schools.
City councillor Audi I.Z. Tambunan of the Indonesian
Democratic Party of Struggle demanded the administration use the
city's reserve funds of Rp 750 billion to renovation of the other
60 school buildings.
"We would set up a special team to deal with the plan to use
the reserve funds for the schools' renovation program," said
Audi, the secretary of the council commission C for social
welfare.
He estimated that if a building needed Rp 3 billion for its
total renovation, it would only need Rp 180 billion for the
renovation of the 60 buildings.
Separately, City Governor Sutiyoso agreed on Monday to use the
reserve funds for the renovation program if it was considered an
emergency.
"I agreed if the council considered it a necessity," Sutiyoso
told reporters.
Observers earlier said the allocation of Rp 16 billion for the
renovation of the 16 buildings was prone to corruption.
They calculated that the renovation of a school building
needed no more than Rp 600 million.