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)