Admission fees remain out of reach for poor

Admission fees remain out of reach for poor

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta/Semarang/Surabaya/Yogyakarta

A man in a rumpled shirt and faded-blue thongs appears and hands
over a stereo set and a gold ring to a pawn shop attendant in
Pondok Labu, South Jakarta.

"To pay (my children's) school enrollment fees," Hartono
explained to The Jakarta Post.

Pawnshop head H. L. Gaol said Hartono was one of many parents
who regularly visited the pawnshop at the beginning of the
academic year in July.

Gaol said his business increased by up to 30 percent in loan
applications at this time of year. "People are looking for
additional funding sources to cover the ever-increasing school
enrollment fees."

"My son who entered SMU 56 was asked for Rp 4.5 million. He
did not want to go to SMU 8 (a popular school in Jakarta) because
it cost almost double," Gaol said. Back in 1998, SMU 8 had set
admission fees at Rp 1.5 million, he said.

School enrollment fees have always been a concern for parents,
especially those on low incomes.

Most parents have a hard job finding out how much the fees
are, with schools often refusing to set a standard rate, and
there are currently no maximum or minimum standards for
enrollment fees set by the central government. Whatever the
amounts, they are often out of reach for poor Indonesians, whose
children drop out of school and go to work.

In Java's urban centers like Jakarta, Surabaya and Yogyakarta,
public schools generally charge parents an average from between
Rp 4 million and Rp 4.5 million a year in admission fees for each
student, while private schools can easily cost three times as
much.

SMA 5 Semarang principal Purwandi told the Post that his
school charged enrollment fees ranging from Rp 500,000 to Rp 4
million. Meanwhile, neighboring SMA 1 said it demanded a lower
amount of Rp 1.5 million.

In all cities, schools are authorized to set their own
standards for enrollment and monthly fees, supposedly in
consultation with parents and school committees.

Jakarta's secondary education agency head Margani Mustar said
schools needed to be transparent about their yearly budgets and
that parents should be aware of where the money they paid for
their children's fees went.

"Local administrations normally give out subsidies to cover
teacher's salaries and basic operational costs," he said. "Other
expenses such as for yearly programs, extracurricular activities
and infrastructure upgrading must be sought independently, namely
through enrollment and monthly fees," he said.

Margani underlined that schools should make their programs
clear and based on needs, not prestige. "Building grand entrances
is not a need, right?" he said.

Former SMA 3 Jakarta parent-teacher association member Arjati
said parents needed to consult with school management before
agreeing on the demanded fees. "We have the right to know what
are we paying for."

Despite the relatively high enrollment fees, most schools
contacted said they would negotiate lower fees for those in
difficult financial situations.

"The acceptance of a student in a public school only relies on
grades and not their financial ability. We have a transparent on-
line procedure where parents can monitor whether their children
will be accepted or not through our website or even through a SMS
(short message services)," Adjati said.

However, he admitted it was common for poorly achieving
students to be admitted to schools they had not made the grade
for by paying money.

"Of course parents must pay more for such procedures," Adjati,
whose nephew's parents had paid his way in, said.

Hutomo Dananjaya, of the Paramadina University Institute for
Educational Reform, said that schools needed to ensure they
provided a high quality education in return for high fees.

"Schools, both public and private, should not aim at only
bringing in profits from fees," he said. "They must allocate them
properly, so that the collected fees can increase the quality of
education for students." (003)