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.