Administration to merge 200 elementary schools
Administration to merge 200 elementary schools
JAKARTA (JP): The city administration will soon merge about
200 state elementary schools which have a scarcity of students,
an official said yesterday.
Deputy head of the city's teaching and education office, Gito
Poernomo, said the decision to merge the schools was taken
because they failed to meet the official requirement for a school
to accommodate at least 100 students.
Under the plan, which is aimed at improving efficiency in the
teaching and learning process, students and teachers of schools
to be merged will be transferred to the nearest state school in
their area, he said.
He said the schools to be most affected by the mergers would
be schools with afternoon classes.
"The students and teachers will not lose anything. They
instead will be able to intensify the learning process and
materials given in morning classes," he said.
Gito said the students would be expected to spend a couple of
hours after school on vocational studies, which were unavailable
at schools with afternoon classes.
The 200 elementary schools to be merged included 60 schools in
Central Jakarta, 65 in South Jakarta, 40 in East Jakarta, 30 in
West Jakarta and one in North Jakarta, said Gito.
He said some of the 200 schools might not be merged if there
was only one school in an area.
The 200 schools used to accommodate over 100 students each,
but the number dropped when the effects of the economic crisis
started to set in.
Many students quit school because their parents could not
afford the tuition fees, said Gito without giving data.
He said that after the mergers, several school buildings would
be left empty and therefore demolished to make way for other
buildings.
Gito gave no details on what buildings would be built, only
that the land would be used for other purposes.
Some of the school buildings to be affected by the plan are
currently used by two different school managements in the morning
and afternoon respectively, he said.
The administration merged 35 schools in the first five months
of this year, he said. They consist of six in East Jakarta, nine
in South Jakarta and 10 in each Central and West Jakarta.
Gito also said his office had suggested that the governor
eliminate the collection of levies on state elementary school
entrance fees.
"We hope that the governor will agree to eliminate the fees
because it would help parents, especially during this time of
crisis," he said. (cst)