Alternative school meets people's real needs

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)