Alternative school meets people's real needs

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Long before the government introduced the slogan "education for all" on National Education Day last week, local communities were establishing alternative schools to provide residents needed skills.

"Nowadays, formal education cannot provide what is actually needed by communities, especially in rural areas," the man behind Bengkulu's Alternative Community School, D. Andalas, told The Jakarta Post on the sidelines of a community empowerment competition hosted by the government and several foreign donors earlier this month.

The jury at the empowerment event heard that with a grant, the alternative school in Bengkulu, which provides education for locals in Sumber Urip village -- a two-hour drive from the provincial capital of Bengkulu -- could train 1,800 locals in farming, agriculture, management and home industry.

Andalas said local farmers could not afford a formal education. "Only 40 percent to 60 percent of elementary school graduates and 25 percent to 30 percent of junior high school graduates continue their studies at the next level."

"We started by identifying their needs and then building a curriculum that set no boundaries on age and that was not limited by the lack of physical infrastructure," Andalas, a graduate of Bengkulu University, said.

He said the alternative school, which was established in 2003, aimed not only to educate school-age children, but also to give farmers and housewives the knowledge to improve their economic standing.

Although Law No. 20/2003 on national education encourages community-based non-formal education, the alternative school receives little acknowledgement -- not to mention funding -- from the local administration, Andalas said.

Andalas, and several volunteer lecturers from Bengkulu University, focus the curriculum on the needs of the community. Funding for the school comes from a collective chicken farm, which has made enough money to purchase six computers for the village.

The school curriculum is divided into agriculture, farming, forestry, public health, management, home industry and computer skills, and maintains a balance between theory and practice.

"It is a self-built education, proving that communities have the power to provide themselves with the kind of quality education previously found only in urban areas," he said.

While some rural residents believe the quality of education in cities is superior, the facts show that many urban poor are left out when it comes to education.

"The 2002 social census showed that there were 250,000 school dropouts in Jakarta," said Moch. Firdaus, a founder of Yayasan Remaja Masa Depan, a free school in Tebet, South Jakarta.

The fact that so many urban poor children do not receive a proper education prompted the graduate of the University of Indonesia to set up the school in 1999 for street children and children of poor families.

"We currently teach 100 junior high school students and 100 high school students at our community-funded school," Firdaus said, adding that the school was supported by a community bank that served those on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder.

In addition to a free education that prepares students for national examinations, the school also provides vocational training for high school students.

"This will add to their professional skills and increase their chances of getting a job," Firdaus said.

Both Andalas and Firdaus said all the hard work that went into establishing their schools was worth it when these schools were able to provide people with needed life skills.

"If we cannot make the government provide an education for all, we have to act on our own and set an example," Firdaus said.(003)